


White Parasol

by clearinghouse



Series: BioShock AU [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF John Watson, Bottom Sherlock Holmes, Daddy Kink, De-Aged Sherlock Holmes, Dubious Science, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Rapture (Bioshock), Sexual Content, Sherlock Being a Good Brother, Top John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:12:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9277565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearinghouse/pseuds/clearinghouse
Summary: BioShock AU. In the 1950s, Sherlock Holmes fled to a manmade underwater city called Rapture so that he could marry John Watson. Then, he was forcibly regressed by the city’s government to the form of child, so that his body could be made to produce a valuable substance called ADAM. Meanwhile, John was turned into a super soldier, whose only duty in life was to protect Sherlock. Shortly after, society in Rapture fell to pieces.It is now the 1960s. Sherlock and John have just left the ruined city after they were called back to London at the mysterious request of Sherlock’s older brother. The two of them are finally on a ship headed back home—that is, until fresh disaster compels them to turn back to their underwater dystopia.(No familiarity with the BioShock games is necessary, though it may help to read Golden Knight first.)





	1. Chapter 1

The strong sound of John’s voice appealed very much to Sherlock. When they fled Rapture together, Sherlock had made certain to take every audio diary that John had ever recorded. These audio diaries each took the shape of cassette tape, and required a cassette player to be listened to. A disproportionately large number of them were from the early days of their time in the underwater city, though John had never stopped making them, using them to record his notes and thoughts about interesting events. 

Another reason that Sherlock liked listening to the diaries—besides for hearing John talk—was that they allowed him to more easily stay in touch with reality. To his own eerily glowing eyes, all the world was one giant dreamworld. Every person was dressed in gleaming armour, or sharp tuxedos, or scintillating gowns. Every wall was covered in wide rainbows and bouncing ribbons. Most intrusive of all was Sherlock’s complete inability to perceive dead bodies, which seemed to him to be sleeping angels dressed in marvellous white and with halos on their heads. When Sherlock remarked upon rose petals scattered around these angels, he knew that he was actually looking at their spilled blood.

Sherlock hadn’t fully realised these morbid limitations until he compared his own perceptions with John’s contradicting observations in his diaries. Still, the involuntary censorship on Sherlock’s perception didn’t bother him. It was rather pleasant, in some respects. It was a unique challenge.

He wasn’t listening to John’s recordings right now, however. He was only holding the cassette player in his arms. It was John’s live voice that had his attention.

A loving, heavy hand was upon his shoulder. Whenever Sherlock looked up, he found John smiling back down at him. John was talking to Lestrade at the moment. Sherlock wasn’t paying too much attention to the content of their conversation, though; he was too busy counting down the seconds until he would be all alone with John again. 

The fresh air of the ocean blew against them on the ship’s deck. The sun was sinking fast into the water’s horizon. John had left his armour in their borrowed bedroom; both he and Lestrade were in their suits. Sherlock was in his own miniature version of one.

“There’s something I just don’t understand,” Lestrade was saying. “Pray don’t take any offence by it, but I’ve been meaning to ask this since I met you two. How did Mr Sherlock Holmes become so little as that? All of the other Little Sisters were children to begin with, am I right? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“It’s no problem,” John said. “It happened a long time ago. The Rapture people were obsessed with genes—ADAM gave them the power to manipulate genes, but they went mad over it. The government had everyone’s genetic sequence on file, and they must have found something special in Sherlock’s. They took Sherlock and made him into a prototype Little Sister who could produce ADAM—stuff that can alter human cells in any way you want—and they took me and made me into his superhuman protector. We were two of the first to be taken like that…” John’s gaze grew distant. “There never was any other adult Little Sister like Sherlock. Apparently, there is something special about Sherlock’s genes. The process doesn’t work for anyone else.”

Lestrade grimaced. “I say, that sounds bloody horrible!”

John shrugged. “Yeah, well, it does sound fairly bad when I put it that way. It’s not all that bad, though. Sherlock and I still got what we wanted, in the end.”

“Are you serious? And what was that?” But Lestrade shook his head. “No, wait, how did you ever break away from the Rapture people to begin with? All the other Little Sisters and Big Daddies are mindless.”

“Like I said, we were two of the first. They must have messed up the brainwashing on us since we were so early to it—they made it damn near flawless on the ones that came after us. And, when it was over...” John smirked coldly. “They were right bastards to us, so I was an even bigger bastard to them in return.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Lestrade scratched the back of his neck. “But, by then, it was too late, and Sherlock was already…?”

John finished the other man’s thought without hesitation. “A child, yeah.” 

Lestrade glanced with concern and uncertainty at Sherlock.

Sherlock self-consciously looked down at his shrunken hands. They were outrageously small. To his own gaze, his skin, at least, was perfectly normal; he knew it was a startling pale shade to others.

“Greg,” John said, “do me a favour, will you.”

“What is it?”

For a few moments, the amiable energy that thrived in John drained away. “Never look at Sherlock like that again. And never—not for a single second—doubt that Sherlock is the same man inside as he always was.”

Lestrade rocked back on his heels from the quiet force of John’s words. 

John crouched to his knees, to be on his Little Sister’s level. His benevolent energy seemed to return in spades as he met Sherlock’s gaze. “Isn’t that right, Sherlock?”

Sherlock was astounded by the kindness in that smile. John could still see their reality exactly as it was, yet he didn’t see in Sherlock the inhuman, helpless creature that he’d been reduced to. When John looked at him with so much devotion and fondness, Sherlock’s fears fell away into nothing. He felt like his old self. Again, he was that awkward adult who had been smitten with his handsome, loyal flatmate. 

Except, John had the height advantage of him this time, and by a considerable margin.

“Y-Yes, right?” Sherlock stuttered, in answer to John’s question.

John leaned in close to whisper, “Yes, of course you are.”

Sherlock thought that John might kiss him, and the very idea made him delightfully nervous; but to his dismay John only patted him warmly on the back and stood up again. 

“Apologies,” Lestrade muttered. “It’s just… I don’t know how you do it, John. It’s bloody difficult not to see a kid when I look at him, even knowing who he is in his head.” He saw the hard censure in John’s face, and hastily corrected himself. “I mean, when I look at you, Mr Holmes,” with a respectful nod to Sherlock. “I’m afraid it’s a bit beyond me.”

“He’s Sherlock Holmes, but in a kid’s body,” John said. “There. Not so complicated, is it?”

Lestrade laughed uncomfortably, and Sherlock got the impression that there was some other question lingering in the air that Lestrade wasn’t asking. Sherlock guessed that Lestrade was curious about how John put up with the burden of caring for an eternal child; that was a thought Sherlock often entertained, anyway.

John must have sensed the unasked question, too. “What is it?”

Lestrade swallowed before going on. “Well… I think I might not ask it after all.”

“Why not?”

Lestrade huffed with a frown and a roll of his shoulders, “I’m sure I won’t like the answer…”

That wouldn’t do for John. He challenged Lestrade with a strong, commanding tone of voice. “You wanted to know before why Sherlock and I stayed in Rapture, didn’t you?”

“Yeah…?”

“I’ll tell you why, and I won’t be the least bit sorry to.” John smiled down sweetly at Sherlock. “It was because that city was the one place where Sherlock and I could be married, and stay married.”

Sherlock timidly covered his face with his two tiny hands. 

Lestrade half-chuckled from the blow of disbelief that hit him. “What? You’re…?” 

John grinned back at Lestrade, with a wink. “Very, very happily married.”

The wrong sort of mood came over Lestrade. He wasn’t merely dumbfounded; he looked at them in a different, dreadful way, and took a wary half-step back. He covered his mouth on reflex.

Sherlock’s heart sank. This would be the cold, disapproving reception of the people on the surface, should they ever learn that Sherlock was married to John. There could be no doubt that Mycroft knew something of the depths of their relationship and was not horrified by it, but Mycroft was strange himself. Mycroft would be the exception. No one else—especially not the good former detective inspector from Scotland Yard—would sanction the sin that was their love.

John didn’t flinch. He was unashamed, and stood straight. His strong, large hand rested protectively on the nape of Sherlock’s neck.

“But Sherlock’s a kid—oh, sorry!” Lestrade waved his hands. “Sorry, I mean, he’s not a kid, but… look, can’t you see? How can you still be a couple now? He’s in a kid’s body, for God’s sake!”

“That’s right,” John said flatly. 

It saddened Sherlock how Lestrade turned pale. The man glanced a couple of times, from doctor to detective and back. He said nothing judgemental, but he said nothing supportive, either. He was deafeningly silent. It was plain that Lestrade was horrified by them. They hadn’t scared him half as much as this when they were nothing more than a menacing Big Daddy and his innocent Little Sister.

Lestrade began to murmur, “Sherlock, is John—?”

But then, the awful discord that had befallen their conversation was violently broken by quite another noise: the ship rocked from a great and devastating impact to its side. 

Lestrade almost tripped from the motion of the moving vessel. “W-What the hell?”

Instinctively, John held Sherlock to his breast with one arm—as easily as if Sherlock were weightless.

There was another blow. This time, shadowy figures appeared; there were people crawling onto the ship from within the water. Sunlight was all but gone, yet Sherlock counted three; two male, one female, and all three wearing the most pristine of ballroom costumes.

“Filthy splicers!” John exclaimed in anger.

Lestrade doubled back at him. “What?”

“ADAM addicts!” John threw Sherlock onto his shoulders. “They’re after Sherlock!”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. Addicts? Here? How could that be?

One of the addicts ran in the opposite direction. The other two came at Sherlock’s group. Sherlock sized them up quickly; the women held a parasol (that’s a crowbar) and the man held a revolver. Sherlock never found a satisfying explanation as to why he could still perceive firearms, though probably they were not so shiny and ornate as they appeared. Both of the attackers also wore silver-backed butterfly pins on their breasts—butterfly pins that Sherlock thought he recognised.

Lestrade took out a revolver of his own. “Stay back, or I’ll—!”

John sprinted at them. The splicer with the gun took a shot, but he couldn’t hope to catch John with it. The woman was still readying her own strike when John drew his powerful fist into the woman’s chest, sending her flying back. The man pointed his revolver again at them—without making any attempts at Lestrade—but John was too close now. He kicked the man in his ribs, and the revolver that had been aimed at them went to the ground. 

The woman was back on her feet. She shook off her daze and came at them in the same haphazard manner as before, while the man went for the gun he had dropped. Addicts were notoriously simple-minded, and evidently these two were not exceptions. 

Sherlock held on tightly to John’s back as John grabbed the woman and threw her over the railing, back into the water from whence she’d come. The same brutal treatment was given to the man. In his determination to protect Sherlock from these insane people, John never flinched or wavered.

Lestrade said, “What kind of idiots are they to attack a Big Daddy?”

“Smart enough idiots to figure out how to get us on our ship,” John replied. “Rapture’s too far from here! How did they get to us?”

Sherlock didn’t like it. It didn’t add up. No addict was nearly intelligent enough to leave the city and follow them like this, yet also so exceptionally foolish as to consider taking on Mr Bubbles (that’s John).

The answer was in the butterfly pins. They seemed so familiar…

“What about everyone else on the ship?” Lestrade asked suddenly. 

John shook his head. “No, addicts don’t care about anything but ADAM. As long as the crew avoids them, the addicts won’t go after them and they should be okay. Even so, there’s not good to have around! Sherlock and I will get them all off the ship. Sherlock, where did that other one go?” 

Sherlock bowed his head shyly. Normally, the intentions of others were clear to him, yet this new behaviour from the addicts was a mystery to him. “I don’t know…”

John pointed. “Ah, there!” 

Sherlock and Lestrade both followed his gaze, which led to the ocean. They all saw that man from before, plus two new addicts with him, dive into the water. The two addicts were also holding someone else—his head was covered in a helmet and the addicts were obscuring the rest of him too much for him to be clearly discernible, though Sherlock made out the fellow’s impeccable, all-white clothing.

Sherlock, John, and Lestrade all looked over the deck, but when the splashes of water had settled, there was no other trace of any of the intruders. The air around them was abruptly still.

“What’s this?” Lestrade pulled a very bewildered face. “They’re leaving?” 

John, too, kept looking over the edge for some answer. “They shouldn’t be, if they came for me and Sherlock…”

“They took someone,” Sherlock said quietly.

Lestrade spun on him. “What?”

“But that’s… Why would they ever do that?” John asked, in a much cooler tone. “No one on the ship has any ADAM or weapons worth the trouble.”

Sherlock had only ever seen one man dressed in white on the ship, and that man had nothing that would be valuable in Rapture. “I, um, don’t know why…”

For all of John’s coolness, Lestrade was bursting with alarm and a need to act. “What’s it matter? If they took someone, we can’t just stand here—!”

John stopped Lestrade with an outstretched hand. “And we can’t just swim after them, either. Addicts never kidnap people like this, ever. Something’s very different here. We’ve got to figure this out first.”

Sherlock agreed with John. This highly organised operation was unlike anything the addicts had ever thrown at them before. It shouldn’t have been possible. They had all been taken by surprise.

Lestrade took a couple of breaths. “All right...”

“All right, then.” John helped Sherlock off his back, and onto the deck once more. He knelt before the boy. “Sherlock,” John said slowly. “Do you know, who did they take?”

Sherlock was afraid to answer that question. “D-Didn’t you see? There’s only one person it could have been. It was…” He held his own hands nervously. He shied away from meeting Lestrade’s gaze.

“Oh my God.” Lestrade took a horrified step back. 

A calm determination settled on John’s features.

“Don’t tell me…” Lestrade shook his head, in vain. “No, it couldn’t have been…?”

“It was Mycroft,” Sherlock whispered to his own feet.

A long, awful second passed, during which Sherlock witnessed a terror of grief possess their old friend. Then, Lestrade started off, his body moving forward without a rational thought to guide it.

John grabbed Lestrade before the miserable man could throw himself overboard. “Stay calm, Greg. Don’t go after him. Listen to me. They didn’t kill him, they took him. So, we can still get him back.”

“B-But—!” Lestrade was in too much of a horror-stricken daze to go on.

John shook him. “Greg, shake it off! We’re turning this ship around and going after him the right way, got it? Sherlock and I will get him back to you! So, go! Sherlock and I will see if any of the bastards are still beneath us—Sherlock and I are fine in the water—but you have to go tell the crew that we’re going back to the lighthouse, now! Understood?” John shoved the man off. “Go, now! Go!”

It was a couple of seconds before Lestrade could comprehend John’s orders. Once Lestrade was able to, he stumbled away to find the crew. 

Sherlock, however, was quick to do as John asked of him. Sherlock eagerly climbed into John’s arms again. With military-like precision and control, John pressed Sherlock close to his body and dove headlong into the familiar thick coldness of the ocean.

Unfortunately, they wouldn’t find anything. The addicts were gone already. Despite that, Sherlock was guilty of being happy to be submerged next to John’s warmth in darkness for a little while.

–

The ship laid anchor close to the lighthouse that was the surface world’s only marker of Rapture. Sunlight was unhidden and generous on this day, but weak beams shooting out from the head of the lighthouse persisted. 

John was in his gleaming knight’s armour again, equipped with helmet, hand-drill, and back carriage (a child-size cage built for Sherlock to grasp and ride in). Not an inch of skin showed through the dark metal plating. The end result was a soldier of such girth and size that he had some difficulty navigating about the deck of the ship without hitting objects along the way. 

Scurrying lightly behind this strong soldier, Sherlock made a much more fairylike image. When he observed his reflection in the water, he thought that his well-ordered shirtsleeves and trousers did not match the wild hair and bare feet of his tiny body.

The hardest part of leaving was making sure that Lestrade didn’t follow them into the dangers of Rapture out of desperation. 

The man was a mess. Ever since Mycroft’s abduction, Lestrade was in a perpetual agitation. He hadn’t found any sleep. Sherlock’s own empathetic heart hurt to see another man split from his own knight.

John gave Lestrade some parting words of encouragement. He removed his helmet and sat by Lestrade, who was pouting miserably on ones of the crates on deck. “Greg, you’ve got to stay here. We both know that it’s hell down there. I’m sorry to say this, but you’re too new to this place. You’ll only get in the way. Don’t worry. Sherlock and I know this city inside and out. We were made to survive in it. If anyone can find him, it’s us.”

“What if you don’t come back?” Lestrade muttered.

“We’ll be back, no matter what happens. You can keep the ship here for a few days, can’t you? Give us some time. We should be back before you know it.”

“And if you aren’t?”

“Then return to London, and never come back. But that won’t happen.”

An unhappy forcefulness seized Lestrade. “No… I’m coming with you! I survived here, too! I learned how to use the weapons, the plasmids! Mr Holmes himself sent me here, didn’t he? He knew I could brave it—!”

“He didn’t foresee everything, did he?” John cut in simply. “He underestimated this city.”

Lestrade’s flame fizzled out. “No, he…” His fists clenched helplessly. “Damn it, John…” He exhaled bitterly. Anger and frustration gripped him. “I know you’re right. You’ll be faster without me. Mycroft’s gone, and I can do bugger all to help him…” 

“Hey, don’t take it personally. Rapture’s not your neighbourhood, Greg. Leave it to us. We’ll bring him back. I swear we will.”

“Yeah… John, thank you for this. I know you don’t have to be going back in there for him. You too, Sherlock.”

“Yes, sir! We’ll get him back for you!” Sherlock proclaimed, before grasping that it might come off as too childish.

John wasn’t bothered by it. Fondly, he tussled Sherlock’s curly hair through the thick glove of his bodysuit. “That’s right,” he whispered lowly. Sweetness and light tickled Sherlock on the inside, from the ends of his scalp where John’s fingers caressed him to his naked little toes. He leaned happily into the touch.

If Lestrade was bothered by it, he didn’t show it. In fact, he managed something like a small, smiling chuckle. “Sherlock, I wanted to ask you before, if John’s been treating you well, but he clearly does, and I think he’ll kill me if I ask anything like that now.” 

“Not a bit,” John said, with an honest laugh. “Any friend of Sherlock is a friend of mine.”

That brought a modicum of relief to the tired man. “Thank goodness, then.” He leaned toward Sherlock, to speak to the boy. He considered his words before speaking. “John says I shouldn’t doubt it’s still the old you in there, and…” Lestrade sighed. “Life’s too short to waste second-guessing. I won’t pretend that I totally understand the kind of thing you and John have got going, but… it’s none of my business, and, all that really matters is you’re both alive and well, after the nightmare you two went through…”

John clapped Lestrade on the shoulder. “It’s too early to be looking at the bright side. Mycroft is still alive, you know. No doubt about it. We’re bringing him back. For Sherlock and I, this will be just like one of our old cases, and we’ve never gone bust on a case before.” John cast a quick grin in Sherlock’s direction, which pleasantly embarrassed him. In a way, Lestrade was the first real client they’d had in a long time. “And there’s no holiday for you, all right? You’ll be the only one here to guard the ship. Be vigilant. Stay in radio contact with us, in case we run into trouble. Keep the ship near enough for a strong signal. All right? Sherlock and I are relying on you, Greg. You’re our man!”

Sherlock was astonished at how the man’s sour mood burned away under John’s commanding light. Lestrade shakily rose to his feet and pumped his fist to spite his own lethargy. “Yes, right—I’ve got it! You can count on me!”

–

The darkness of the inside of the lift in the lighthouse brought an abrupt end to the sunniness of the surface world. Once the doors closed in front of them, the old propaganda adverts were automatically projected onto the wall in front of them, welcoming them to the perfect, well-functioning society of Rapture.

Sherlock watched the shots scroll, and listened to the voice of the city’s founder extolling its virtues to the sound of classical music, until at last the show was over and the doors gave way. From within John’s back cage, Sherlock had a fine angle from which to see how the building was filled and surrounded by velvet curtains, marble floors, and red rugs. Everything was innocently spotless and shining.

John stepped out of the lift. Every step he made felt like a large one to his passenger. He had brought no weapons with him, save the enormous drill that had once been destined for constructive purposes.

From atop his perch on his Big Daddy, Sherlock wasn’t afraid of anything this city had to throw at them.

As soon as they were clear of the bathysphere, John spoke, via the microphone inside his large helmet. “Sherlock, sorry to stop us already, but can you come off me for a minute? I just remembered. I need to ask you something very important.”

Without asking for details, Sherlock scurried down John’s back. He stood in front of his goliath, with hands diffidently held behind his back. “Yes?”

“I just wanted to know,” the giant held out his arms to Sherlock, “if my Little One wanted a hug before we went on?”

Sherlock’s soul flipped merrily in his body. Hugs were the best! With a delighted squeal, he jumped at the large body of his protector. 

He was welcomed into John’s great arms with affection. “That’s it, come here.” John squeezed him softly to his own well-built, black-meshed body. “Now, you be good, okay? Don’t leave my side for an instant. And no getting distracted by anything we might come across. We’ve got work to do.”

Sherlock snuggled against John’s breast. “Okay,” he answered in a sing-song voice. Maybe he had been fated from the beginning to end up in a small body, just so he would be in a form for John to hold all the more easily. If so, it wasn’t a cruel fate. 

Together, they pressed on.

–

As soon as the two of them were out of the welcoming area of the city and into the petal-covered depths of the window-lined hallways which allowed for movement between the different city districts, they discovered something which had not been there before. 

It was a dark-haired doll in the likeness of a child, carefully hung up on a headstone and surrounded by flowers and toys. Fake butterflies descended around the doll from thin strings attached to the ceiling. Uppercased words of religious mourning were graffitied onto the wall and the floor. The largest, most striking message of all—written entirely in rose petals—was a promise of swift vengeance.

“John, can I look at that, please?” It was this adorned shrine that finally reminded Sherlock where he had seen the butterfly pins of that terrible boarding party before.

John stopped in front of it. “What is this? It looks like a grave, almost. A memorial.”

Sherlock jumped off of his carriage, onto his own uncovered feet, to take a closer look at the setup. “I think it’s from the Rapture Family.”

“The Rapture Family?” John paused to remember. “Oh, yeah. That’s a new religious cult.”

Sherlock hummed in the affirmative. “The members all wear a butterfly symbol. The people who attacked us had butterfly pins on them.” 

“Oh?” John crossed his arms. “But that makes no sense. The Rapture Family folk worship Little Sisters like gods. Preserving the cycle of ADAM, and all that. The members never attacked us before. They never so much as got in our way before.”

Sherlock agreed. It was quite the mystery. The members of that mad cult were famous for three things: their unfaltering devotion to the common good of the cult members, their ruthlessness against everyone else, and their veneration for the Little Sisters. The Little Sisters were responsible for collecting ADAM from angels who no longer needed it, so that it wouldn’t go to waste; besides for Sherlock, all of the Little Sisters completed this task with admirable diligence. Cult members would sooner sacrifice themselves for Sherlock than hurt a Little Sister such as him. There was no reason for them to go after Sherlock, and certainly not Mycroft. What was their plan? Was someone on the surface organising them—or tipping them off?

Sherlock didn’t know what the cult might be up to. They were too unlike the other, more chaotic addicts. All of the cult’s activities were usually highly organised, and close to home. “They must have taken him to Siren Alley,” Sherlock said.

John snorted. “The old red-light district? Why there?”

“That’s where their church is. Either they need him for information of… some kind… or maybe for some ritual…? The best place they can keep him is in their church, Mr B.” Sherlock blushed at the choice of name. “I’m sorry… I mean, John.”

John stopped him. “Not so fast with the apologies. You’ve been calling me John a lot lately. I like it. But I like the other names, too. It’s fine, if you call me Mr B. Come to think of it, it’s pretty good for me when you use both of them!” John laughed. “I guess I must like the variety.”

Sherlock bowed his head in gratitude, and to downplay his own laughing smirk. “Thank you…”

“Not a problem, darling. Let’s go bust a creepy cult today, all right?” John gave his drill a violent spin, to illustrate his point. Sherlock giggled at the gesture.

John hoisted Sherlock onto his shoulder. They kept moving.

–

No one gave them much trouble. A few of the ruined survivors of the city mistakenly come across their path, but they fled from John’s thundering wake as soon as they realised their error. Sherlock marvelled at the speed with which they picked up their long, flowing skirts in terror and fled their ballrooms for their lives.

“I’m always glad that you can’t really see these monsters for what they are,” John muttered once to Sherlock, when they came across a couple of angels lying besides a lift in a garden of roses which grew from inside the lift itself. The angels still reeked of what traces of ADAM they had secured in life. 

Sherlock was fairly glad, too, that his perception of the addicts was warped. John’s body had been specially altered for a particular manner of ADAM use, and he needed it to live; these addicts, on the other hand, had no need for ADAM, and their reckless use of it (usually in hopes of using it to favourably alter their genes in one way or another) gradually ruined their bodies as well as their minds.

It was some little time into their solemn hike before John spoke again. 

A large chemical fire had broken out—an occurrence that was not rare—and it was this fire that temporarily cut them off from the next district. The city’s fire suppression system would require the better part of an hour to clear the way. In the meantime, the two adventurers spent that time searching near the exchange point for some alternative path, though none presented themselves. John took advantage of the lull in the action to start a conversation.

“Where do you want to live,” he asked in a kind tone, which did not match the fearsomeness of his black body armour, “when we get to London?”

Sherlock shyly receded into his tiny carriage. “Me?” He had supposed that John would make that decision.

“Yes, you. You can leave the hard details of finding a place to me, but it’s got to be a place that you like. We can go anywhere we want, so, what place would you like best? Do you want to move back into where we were before we came to Rapture?”

“In the castle, with the queen?” Sherlock asked. Naturally, it had been their flat, not a castle, and the queen had only been their humble landlady. The fact of the matter was that even some of Sherlock’s memories were warped by his draconian programming. Worst of all, Sherlock allowed them to be warped, even though he knew better. The warped memories were so much prettier. 

Incredibly, John never thought less of him for it. “Yeah, the old castle,” he said cheerfully, to Sherlock’s endless relief. “That would suit me just fine. Is that what you want?”

“Oh, um…” Sherlock had to consider it. He imagined all the people—the unthinkably normal people—and how they would recoil from the sight of an otherworldly child like him. “I’m… afraid I won’t be able to live there, Mr B.” It should have been embarrassing to use that name again, but Sherlock still enjoyed calling John by that pet name which had been part of his programming. 

Besides, if John liked the name, too, then that was all that mattered. “Oh, really?” he asked. “What makes you so sure?”

“It was, um, a crowded place…”

“Yeah? You don’t like the crowds?” 

“No. Um, yes, but…” Sherlock lowered his voice. “Lots of people will see my face. It’s not a healthy face, is it? People won’t like it. And my eyes glow… Even I can see that they glow… and I’m too small to be a person—”

John stopped sharply in his tracks. The screeching halt of his steps resounded in Sherlock’s child-size ears. Without explaining himself, John changed direction, and went down a nearby residential wing that led to nowhere. 

Sherlock cowered slightly in his cage. He didn’t have the courage to say anything for a small space of time. “I-I’m sorry, Mr Bubbles, did I say something wrong?”

“Sherlock, how does this district look to you?” John’s voice, though distorted partially by its transmission through the helmet, was temptingly gentle. 

“Um...” The boy glanced around. “Big portraits of people… wool rugs… crystal chandeliers…”

“It’s nice, then?”

“I guess so…”

“Good!” John kicked down the door to the first living quarters the came across. He worked off his helmet, and tossed it into the living room.

Before Sherlock could so much as squeak, he found himself being held by John, in John’s enormous hands, like a baby being admired.

“Look at you.” John, with an expression that was sun-deprived but otherwise unmarred by the city, smiled brightly at him. “You have a brilliant, beautiful face.”

Sherlock blushed at the praise that he did not deserve. Even if the truth was hidden from his gaze, he could deduce it readily enough: he was a monster, like the other addicts, and unlike John. “I… don’t…”

“Yes, you do! You have the most gorgeous face in the world, with your thick curly hair, your wide, shining eyes, and your cute little cheeks. Tell me, who has a beautiful face?”

It was too hard for Sherlock to protest, especially when John was so full of conviction. “Mr B…”

John grinned widely. “Nope. Who has a beautiful face?”

“John…”

“One more time, baby.” John kissed Sherlock’s forehead lovingly. “Who has a beautiful face?”

The sparkling sentiment of devotion in John’s touch weakened Sherlock, in the best way. The boy giggled childishly. “I-I do?”

“That’s right!” The doors of a bedroom opened as soon as John stepped foot near its threshold.

A couple of seconds later, and Sherlock felt the softness of bedsheets rub against the bare undersides of his feet. He looked down and discovered that he’d been placed on an enormous, kingly bed, with its luxurious quilt thrown boldly aside. The bed was richly decorated, and had a canopy hanging overhead. The condition of this bedroom was as apparently spotless as the rest of the city.

His golden knight followed him on top of the bed. “You’re the one beautiful thing here.” He threw off the metal plating of his armour, and bent onto his black-meshed knees. He reached for Sherlock’s face, and brought their lips slowly together.

It was shamefully good. Compared to Sherlock, John was a great and godlike giant who towered over him. It was exquisite how cherished and safe Sherlock felt whenever John brought him close to him. John’s lips worshipped Sherlock’s own, curving dominantly and naturally against the small shape of Sherlock’s mouth. John held back none of his passion, though he expressed it softly, using his strength gently for the sake of the Little One who loved him. It was a long, indulgent time before John pulled back, and gave Sherlock a chance to gather air.

An aching heat was growing in the pit of Sherlock’s body. It spread down his thighs, and through his legs. Sherlock was astonished and happy for it; this sensation meant he would have something to give John soon.

John playfully tapped Sherlock’s nose. “You’re my precious baby. You’re not too small to be a person. There’s no such thing as being too small.” John traced down the side of Sherlock’s cheek, to just under his neck, tickling Sherlock enough to make him titter. John grinned. “To me, you’re the person who matters most.”

Sherlock shuddered at the pure bliss of being so accepted by the man he loved. “Big Daddy,” he whispered.

Johns’ eyes twinkled. 

“Um…” Sherlock hadn’t meant to say that name in quite that way. It wasn’t a name that he should be calling John by in this context (not without coming across as outrageously perverted) but the words came out of him on their own.

John only smiled. His eyes were exceptionally dark against the artificial pallor of his skin. “Lie back, Sherlock. I’ll show you how beautiful you are, okay?” John gently pushed Sherlock back, until he fell completely against the sheets. John leaned over him. “Is that all right? Only if you’re feeling up to it.”

Sherlock wished he could always be underneath his guardian like this. “Of course, please, Mr B…” A sharp twinge of concern and guilt gave him pause. “Oh, but, um, what about Mycroft? We shouldn’t… He’s still missing… and…”

“Hey. I’m worried about him, too. But it’s okay. We can’t go after him until the path clears, and as soon as it does, we’ll have him in no time. All right?” John’s rough stubble brushed against Sherlock’s smooth skin again as he kissed his cheek. “Sherlock…. I don’t mean to be rude, but…” He descended down Sherlock, undoing clothes as he went. “I’m afraid I’ll go mad unless I have you filling my mouth soon.”

The thought of his Big Daddy wanting to satisfy him so much made Sherlock whimper. Such a thought was an outrage to everything moral and decent, yet nothing gave Sherlock more pleasure than feeding the ADAM that his tiny body released to his kind, strong guardian.

John drew apart the sides of Sherlock’s undone shirt like the offending folds of curtains. “I would never do anything to humiliate you, but every time we talked to anyone up on that ship, I wanted to kiss you right in front of them.” John felt along Sherlock’s bare chest, curving lightly down the smooth skin. The touch tickled him again, and again Sherlock giggled in his high-pitched child’s voice, which seemed to please John. “I’m not ashamed of you, Sherlock. When Lestrade was looking at you like that—as if you were only a child—I had to fight myself to not put my hands all over you.”

Sherlock gasped. And he fancied himself to be a detective! He’d had no idea.

“Of course, you must still be sore, after what we did on the boat. You won’t have much ADAM yet by now, either, isn’t that right? So, don’t worry about any of that. All I need is to take care of you.” 

That was all that Sherlock needed, too. It was terrifying and wonderful, to be deflowered by the man who gave up everything just so that he could be with Sherlock forever. All of Sherlock’s clothes were being made quick work of. Sherlock hoped with all of his soul that John liked what he saw. Sherlock’s form was weak, and thin, and hairless, and inhuman—and it would always be this way.

“Hey, are you embarrassed?” John paused to look up at the eyes of the boy who trusted him. “It’s okay if you are. I can do this under the blankets, if you’d like that better.”

Sherlock chewed anxiously on his fist. He was indeed embarrassed, but he didn’t want to say anything that might be too immature. 

John saw right through him. “Ah, you would, wouldn’t you? It’s no problem.” John brought the quilt back over himself, until Sherlock couldn’t see his Big Daddy anymore. The gigantic blanket covered most of Sherlock’s Big Daddy and of Sherlock; John was too big for the bed, however, and his boots stuck out at the end of it. “How’s this?”

“Um, g-good…” His little hands clutched the short hair of John’s head under the sheets. 

His trousers were loosened. They slid down his slim legs, and completely off. Then, a feeling of fire followed the blazing trails that John’s gloved fingers were tracing along his bare legs.

Sherlock whimpered. It was horrifically wanton of him, how he allowed his own diminutive, naked knees to part for John. Somehow, the soreness from the time that John had penetrated him worked in tandem with the pleasure of John’s touches, putting his entire body at peace while John excited him. “John…”

“Still good?” John’s words were thick with arousal.

“Um, still good…”

Somewhere under the heavy quilt, John dragged his tongue slowly up Sherlock’s thighs. 

A deep shudder flowed through Sherlock’s body, and came out of him as a shaky breath. His body was pounding with a heartbeat that longed for John.

“God, you smell so good,” John growled. “Damn, I need you so badly. It feels like I won’t live if I don’t have you in me. I don’t really care what anyone else makes of us, Sherlock. As long as I get to do this for you, I’m the happiest man in the world.” An unshakable grip came upon Sherlock’s pliant hips. “I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

Sherlock closed his eyes. “I love you, too, Mr B,” he sang sweetly.

That marked the end of John’s self-restraint. John’s head bowed down. A second later, and then sweet warmth enveloped the boy’s heavy arousal.

“A-Ah!” Sherlock cried out. No matter how many times his husband made love to him, it was never any less intoxicating.

There was an appreciative groan under the covers. The bounce of John’s head gyrated the quilt up and down. 

“Mr B…!” Sherlock rocked into John’s mouth. 

John took him in deeply. He was so much larger and stronger than Sherlock. It was simple for John to take his little partner’s aching need deeply and securely in his throat. John stroked over Sherlock’s light hips, to massage just above them.

For one instant, Sherlock was breathless. Surely John knew as well as Sherlock knew that the area of his stomach was especially sensitive in a Little Sister. Generally, it caused soothing sensations to percolate down his little legs and arms, while promising an increase in the rate of ADAM production inside of him in the near future. The relaxing effect of John’s massage, combined with the hot, arousing feel of the throat around him, left him in debauched disarray underneath John.

John slowly escalated the breadth of his kneading. The muscle and vigour of John’s touch was astonishingly careful. John never bruised him, or held or forced him in any way that Sherlock did not want to be.

But Sherlock had a shameful proclivity for just that. It was terrifically humiliating, and also made him whimper with a helpless desire for more. He wanted to be John’s husband—his equal—and yet he also loved being John’s trusting little boy. 

In almost every way, this should be terribly wrong. Yet John had made it clear that it wasn’t wrong in his eyes. With every word he said to Sherlock, John went out of his way to let his boy know that John still thought of him as the shy, unsociable man with whom he once shared rooms at Baker Street—only, that man was presently confined to a helpless body, which was John’s greatest joy to cherish and protect.

A luscious heat coursed insistently through Sherlock’s stomach, through his groin and thighs. It demanded release. This was the first and only sign he would get that what minuscule amount of ADAM available in him wanted to come out and find a new home. Sherlock whimpered desperately. This aspect of their new life ought to be natural to him by now, but actually it always startled and embarrassed him. And after all the passion that they had shared in the last couple of days, the force of his need was as undeniable as ever! He tried to let his protector know what was about to happen, “J-John…”

John popped off of Sherlock, just long enough to say, “Sherlock, it’s all right, you can come, don’t fight it… Go on,” Sherlock’s titan breathed underneath the sheets, “come to daddy…”

There was a pitiful gasp, and tears of stupendous want, and then Sherlock felt it happen. It wasn’t much; only a trifle of ADAM seeped out of him. Regardless, it was pure bliss to feel it escape his body and eased out by John’s hands and mouth. A lovely weight had been released from inside him, to be given up to the man he loved most in the world. He sighed with contentment.

At the same time, a roaring moan drifted up from under the covers. Sherlock thought he heard his knight growl something along the lines of, “Oh, God, yes,” before he hungrily licked up and swallowed down all of the nectar travelling innocently down the curves of Sherlock’s soft skin. 

Even though Sherlock did not have all his senses returned to him yet, the waves of John’s affection cascaded innocently up his legs and to his heart. He loved that John was so intimate with his little body. Each of John’s licks was as tender and heartwarming as a chaste kiss.

John didn’t let a single drop of Sherlock’s gift go to waste. He slurped all the way down the trail to Sherlock’s knees, and back up, sucking in all of his reward until Sherlock was a mere blushing jelly. When there was nothing left, John backed out from under the quilt, to crawl along the top of it. He gave Sherlock a reassuring smile, then nestled Sherlock’s wrapped body against himself. “That was so good,” he said. “Thank you for that, Sherlock. Come here, lie against me. You must be exhausted now? I’ll give you some time to rest here. Then I’ll carry you in my arms while we walk, until you’re fully recovered, okay?”

Sherlock couldn’t have asked for anything better. John was a perfect giant pillow. It wasn’t hard at all to lose himself in John’s warmth. “Okay, Mr B.” In their old life, before John’s enhancement and Sherlock’s reduction, John’s arms had still been firm and powerful when they were around him—but not as much as they were now.

If ever a cure was found for his condition as a Little Sister, Sherlock would not volunteer to use it.


	2. Chapter 2

The church of the cult was a repurposed brothel, which had itself once been an architectural firm. More relevantly, it was deserted. There were signs that the congregation had recently been in attendance, but no one was there at that moment.

Mycroft’s white clothes were lying alone and discarded at the polished centre of the church. No angel was to be found in or near them. However, there was a plenitude of chemical plasmid spillage around the clothes, in greater variety than Sherlock had ever seen them.

John whistled at the sight. “What a mess. What happened here?”

“I don’t know…” The colourful chemicals were interesting, but not altogether helpful. Sherlock turned his attention to his brother’s ruined clothes. “Something’s missing from here, Mr B.”

John walked them both closer to the abandoned clothes of Sherlock’s older brother. He knelt and turned over the suit pieces with the end of his drill, searching for anything and finding nothing. “You’re right, there’s no body.”

That was true, but there was something else missing. Something else should have been with Mycroft’s clothes, and it wasn’t here. 

Before Sherlock could say as much, John jumped back up and poised his drill for attack. “Sherlock, careful. We’re not alone.” 

Sherlock hadn’t noticed any danger, until that moment. He looked behind them; a couple of shadows passed over the hallway. There was the sound of footsteps somewhere above them. The signs were slight, but they added up to a single awful conclusion.

They were surrounded by addicts. 

None of the addicts were visible, at first. Slowly, however, they made themselves known. A couple of refined gentlemen came to look at them from on the next floor up, and were joined by a lady. The shadows at the door solidified into a few people with golf clubs. From what Sherlock could see, each wore a butterfly pin.

“They’re just standing around. What are they doing?” There was disappointment in John’s tone. “Why don’t they attack, or run?” He angled himself up at the splicers above. “Come on, then, bastards! Give me an excuse! Come find out what a Big Daddy is made out of!”

The lady and gentlemen bent their necks deferentially and sank back into the shadows a bit. The addicts at the door did much the same, though with some hesitation. After that, they didn’t move, and continued to watch.

“They’re confused,” Sherlock said in a hushed manner. “Something’s not right here, Mr Bubbles.”

“Yeah. I did sort of expect these cult people to be a bit more cheerful to have a Little Sister come say hello.” John huffed. “Actually, I thought one or two of them would try to give us an offering. They seem like just the people to be that degree of insane.”

Sherlock also wondered at that. The cult members were not exactly thrilled to see them.

“What do you think they did with Mycroft?” John took a second look at the addicts around them. “Did they make him into an addict, too, somehow?”

Sherlock didn’t believe so, when he considered the mindlessness of the cult members. They seemed so ludicrously ineffectual now, retreating into the shadows as they were currently doing, but these were the same people who had attacked their ship. They were dangerous—unpredictable, even? 

Perhaps, but there were patterns to their behaviour. Those patterns were slowly but surely coming to light. Sherlock knew that he and John needed to plan their next movements carefully—if they were going to avoid further trouble from this crazed cult.

“They are watching, waiting to see what we do,” Sherlock decided.

“That’ll be boring for them, then. There’s only one thing we can do in this place: leave.”

“Leave…?” It was true that there was nothing left for them here.

“Yeah. Maybe they don’t like us being in their house.” John looked to the exit, before remembering the white remains on the floor. “What about Mycroft’s clothes? Take them or leave them?”

Sherlock wasn’t sure what it would communicate to the watching cult members if he and John took the clothes. Besides, those clothes were in sorry shape. “Um, leave them. Is that okay?”

“Gotcha.” John left the church. The cult members that had been lurking made themselves scarce at John’s terrifying approach. John chose the path from which they had come, and put some distance between them and the lair of the cult. 

Sherlock adhered tightly to John’s back, and took furtive peeks behind them.

Most of the addicts did not follow after a couple of minutes, except for one lady, who lingered from a considerable distance away, watching them and following their movements.

“There’s still one,” Sherlock whispered, and his Big Daddy came to a halt.

“Is that so? I ought to run back and give them a piece of my mind.” John sighed. “These are some odd splicers! Why do I get the feeling that an avalanche of them will come raining down if I go against even one of them?”

Sherlock realised that John was right; there was an avalanche, waiting for this Little Sister and his Big Daddy to stray. “We can’t leave.”

“What?”

“We can’t leave Rapture again. If we go, the mean people will attack us, and they’ll go after the ship, too.”

“How do you know that?”

“They’re confused; I think they didn’t expect us to come back. Now, they’re watching us; they don’t want us leaving again. They don’t want to see a Little Sister leave the city.”

“Really?” For no particular reason, John spun his drill loudly toward the insidious cult member. She didn’t respond to the gesture. “Well, that would explain why they’re not having a row with us yet. But why didn’t they stop us on the way out, then?”

Sherlock wasn’t so sure. “Maybe they did? Or maybe they were confused about what we were doing…” The mess of plasmids on the floor came to his mind again. Red, green, yellow, brown. Something extraordinary had happened in that church, something related to the loss of a Little Sister from the city. “I’m sorry about this, Mr B…”

“Hey, it’s no trouble! These monsters are not going to stop us,” John gave his cargo a hearty, confident pat on his small, curly-haired head, “no matter what they’ve got planned. If we can’t leave without a battle, then we’ll be ready for it.”

Endlessly grateful, Sherlock leaned into the comforting touch. In a way, this situation was looking to be Sherlock’s fault—for being a Little Sister and therefore the object of worship of a mad group of splicers—but his kind John didn’t seem to think so. Much to Sherlock’s relief, his husband was as eager and happy to protect him as ever. 

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” John said, his voice as soft as his hand on Sherlock’s head. “I’ll let Lestrade know about the threat.” He paused. “And about Mycroft’s clothes, too.”

Sherlock nodded sheepishly. Lestrade had the right to know, but they hadn’t found the missing man yet, and Sherlock feared with great conviction that the Mycroft who had disappeared would not be the same Mycroft whom they would rescue.

–

John had Lestrade on the radio in moments.

“John?” Lestrade’s voice was anxious, and spoken too closely to his receiver. “Sherlock—?”

“No, I’m sorry, we haven’t got him yet,” John replied with characteristic calmness. “We’re still on the hunt. We wanted to tell you that we did find some of his clothes, though. They were lying in a pile, off on their own.”

“Just… his clothes?” That wasn’t a death sentence for Sherlock’s older brother, but it was not at all what Lestrade had wanted to hear. “That doesn’t have any special meaning in Rapture, does it? Clothes in a pile?”

“None that I know of. We’re still looking into it. And we’re still going to find him, without a doubt.” 

There was no answer to that hearty declaration over the radio, besides for a half-hearted mumble.

“Listen, Greg, there’s something else you need to know. Sherlock tells me that if he and I try to leave Rapture again, the ship might come back under fire by the same people who attacked us before.”

An unhappy groan issued over the connection. “Are you serious? For the love of…! But what more do those arseholes want from us?”

“They’re not after you guys, exactly. They’re going to do what they can to try to keep Sherlock—a Little Sister—from leaving again.”

“That means the not-nice people will leave the ship alone if we stay in the city,” Sherlock prompted.

John pondered the consequences of that possibility, before speaking to Lestrade again. “Sherlock says they will leave the ship alone if we don’t regroup with you. Either it’ll be a fight against the cult with us, or you can take the ship and go. I’m sure Sherlock and I can find a way back to London some other way,” he shrugged to Sherlock, “if we need to.”

Sherlock beamed cheerfully. For all the time they’d spent together in Rapture, they’d never put innocent bystanders at risk for their own sakes. Quite the contrary, they prided themselves on saving anyone who could be saved. With his strong knight here to protect him, Sherlock had nothing at all to fear if Lestrade decided to leave with the ship. For the two of them, there wasn’t much of a hurry to leave Rapture, anyway. All Sherlock had ever needed in life was the companionship of Dr John Watson.

“And when you find Mycroft?” Lestrade pressed immediately.

John glanced at Sherlock again.

The answer to that question was clear to the clever Little Sister. Sherlock told John, “Tell him they won’t let Mycroft go, either.”

John accepted Sherlock’s word for it, without question. He relayed to their friend on the other end, “Sherlock says they won’t let Mycroft go. He’ll have to stay with us permanently, when we get hold of him.”

There was an indignant bark over the radio. “Ha! Then you’re bloody mad if you think we’re going anywhere! I’ll set up some traps, and some sentries—I still have my plasmids, too! Just you wait. We’ll be ready for them this time, whenever you all get back here, or even if they try something before then! Those freaks will regret ever crossing us!”

“You’ve got that right,” John seconded heartily. Sherlock could hear that both of them were eagerly looking forward to blowing off some steam on deserving targets.

Lestrade hurriedly added, “Oh, there’s something I should tell you two. I came down into Rapture a little while ago—I didn’t go far! I thought I saw some people hanging around the bathysphere. I didn’t like the look of them, and I was going after them. I went back up as soon as I was sure I wouldn’t catch them, but…” Lestrade paused for a breath. “Before I turned back, I saw that someone had set up a big stone with flowers and toys for kids.”

“Yeah, we saw that, too,” John said.

“What?” There was a brief silence, filled only by static. “You saw it,” Lestrade murmured angrily, “and you didn’t tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“His hair!” Lestrade shouted. “Mycroft’s hair! It’s just a lock of it, but it’s got to be Mycroft’s. It was stuck right on the stone!”

This new information caught Sherlock’s attention.

John, too, was disturbed by it. “We saw the same memorial,” he allowed, “but we didn’t see any hair on it.”

“You… didn’t?” Lestrade’s anger deflated. “Oh… well… Hey, why did you say it was a memorial?”

“All the slogans about death and revenge written on around it gave it away.”

“What?” Lestrade dropped his bitterness completely. “We must be talking about two different stones. The one I saw was covered in rubbish about celebration and rebirth.”

“Rebirth?” Sherlock wondered aloud. That resonated with him. It gave him an idea. With that single word, the truth of this case quickly grew clearer in his mind.

“The cult must have changed the thing since we saw it,” John said. “I can’t believe they would waste their time with that—”

“Oh!” Sherlock exclaimed. “I see! I’ve been slow—so slow, John!” The attack on the ship, the abduction of Mycroft, the abandonment of Mycroft’s clothes; it all added up to one cogent picture. An unfortunate picture, but a cogent one. Sherlock hadn’t thought these addicts so capable of so coherent a strategy—but it was the only solution to present itself to the tiny detective, and all cults had the power to drive their devout members to such levels of calculated absurdity.

John was excited by Sherlock’s excitement. “Sherlock, what is it? You figured something out?”

“Yes! I’d suspected parts of it, but I hadn’t connected everything until now—Mr B!” Sherlock’s little body bounced gleefully on John’s shoulders. “I know where Mycroft is, and why he’s there!”

“Brilliant!” With Sherlock on his back, John already started off, until he remembered that he didn’t know where he was going yet. He looked back at his Little One. “Uh, so, where is he, Sherlock? Just point the way, and together we’ll have him in no time!”

Sherlock giggled brightly. John’s unconditional loyalty and faith in Sherlock’s abilities always affected him so powerfully.

“Oh, hold on there, Sherlock.” John raised his voice. “Looks like we’ve got a new lead, Greg. I’ll have to get back to you later. Sherlock and I are on the case now!”

“Sure, all right. Stay safe,” was Lestrade’s final message over the radio.

–

As soon as the duo passed by a child-size hole in the wall, Sherlock asked John to halt. “Here, John, by this hidey hole.”

John grinned at the adorable choice of words. “Uh, just to make sure, you’re talking about the air vent, right?”

Sherlock’s cheeks turned red. “Yes, the vent…”

Then again, it wasn’t merely a vent anymore. Probably that was all it was built to be, but ever since the rise of the Little Sisters, these vents were stylised holes in the wall (embossed with the shapes of leaves and stems) that the children used to safely navigate through the dangerous city. The vents were too small for anyone but children to use, and apparently too uninviting and industrial-looking for any child except for a delusional Little Sister to consider using.

“It can be called a hidey hole, too,” John said lightly.

The weight of a thousand gratitudes crashed over Sherlock. “Um, thank you,” he said meekly. 

John stood by the vent and peered into it. The holes were too high off the ground for the Little Sisters to reach on their own; for this reason, their Big Daddies were conditioned to help the children climb into them on impulse. It was this urge that John seemed to be resisting, when Sherlock observed that John’s hands were twitching restlessly. “Uh, what do you need me to do?” he asked.

“Um… knock on it?”

“Knock on the vent?”

“Yes, um, to check if there are any Little Sisters here. They should come out… if they hear a Big Daddy knock…”

“Ah, got it.” John applied a heavy knock to the vent, which echoed loudly down the metal.

After a few seconds, an unfamiliar princess-like girl peeked out of the hole. “Mr B?” she asked, rubbing her eye sleepily. She didn’t quite approve of John, however. “You’re not my Mr B.”

“Afraid not. Excuse me, but we’re looking for a friend. Have you seen him? Tall bloke?” John held out his hands for size reference. “Kind of stiff? Not all that friendly?”

The girl tilted her head with a lost, bewildered look.

“He has a white parasol,” Sherlock said. 

Instantly, the girl brightened. “Oh! I’ve seen a pretty white parasol.”

“Ah, that’s fantastic,” John exclaimed. “That must be Mycroft’s… white parasol, right?”

Sherlock nodded. “Where did you see it?” he asked.

“Near here,” she cooed unhelpfully. 

“Um, can you show us, please?”

She glanced back at her hidey hole. “I shouldn’t go anywhere until… oh… Mr B is here.”

A lumbering hulk of a creature was coming toward them. Both Sherlock and John recognised a later-model Big Daddy when they saw one, and this was exactly that. This behemoth was larger and more armoured than even John, but at the expense of his mobility. The silent man inside that enormous battle suit seemed taken aback that the little girl was outside of the vent already, but he did not let it delay him from offering a hand to her.

It was second nature to the girl for her to take that enormous hand without a second thought. “We want to go see the white parasol, Mr B.”

Obeying her wish, the creature stomped down the hall, leading the way for John and Sherlock. 

–

They quickly came upon another hidey hole.

However, this one was not abandoned. There were two other hulks already there, knocking fruitlessly against the rim of the vent. On the ground beside them were a couple of little girls. Each girl wore an exquisite dress and done-up hair. They appeared perfectly proper, save for the lack of shoes and the faint glow in their eyes. They seemed rather cross about whatever it was that was occupying the attention of their giant protectors. The Little Sister who had led the way pulled her Big Daddy with her as she went to join her friends. 

Lying near the bare feet of those girls was an intricate and gleaming white parasol, lying unattended on the floor.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many Little Sisters in one place,” John whispered. “What are they all doing? Is it about Mycroft? Is he here?”

“I think that he is here, Mr B.” Sherlock replied. 

As soon as John approached, the three silent men harmlessly stepped away from the hole to give John room to access it. 

The girls were not so silent. On the contrary, they were eager to share their annoyance with the newcomers. “Our sister’s in the hidey hole, but she won’t come out,” one of the new girls complained. “She’s making us all worry!”

“Hasn’t she been here all day?” the girl who had been their travelling companion said.

“Is she stuck in there?” the other new one groused. “She must have gone and gotten herself stuck! Or maybe she’s playing a trick on us!”

The Big Daddies were more taciturn about their frustration, but it was plain that they were upset also. They were doubly powerless in the face of this problem; by design, they could not extract an unwilling Little Sister from so small a vent.

“John,” Sherlock said. “Put me up into the hole, please?”

There was something like a sigh of relief from Sherlock’s Big Daddy. John gladly took Sherlock into his hands, lifting him up easily by his sides. 

Sherlock loved whenever John held him. He felt precious in his own soft form when John carefully helped him up into the vent. “Thank you, Mr B,” Sherlock whispered.

John stroked Sherlock’s chin, a show of affection that happened to also cover half of Sherlock’s face. “I’ll be waiting right here,” John assured. “Don’t go too far, all right?”

Sherlock nodded, with a blush at the wonderful attention. He turned round and, with a gentle push from John to guide him, dug into the darkness of the ventilation shaft. 

He didn’t have to travel far down the narrow metal path. He knew he wouldn’t have to. The Little Sister who was hiding here would not have had the heart to go exploring in these dark caverns alone. In the small, dark space, Sherlock saw what he had expected to see: the back of a dress turned toward him. With a thrilled yelp of delight, Sherlock tugged on the dress.

This provoked a lukewarm response from the wearer of the dress. “I’m not coming out of here, little girl,” the princess’s light voice hissed. “Go away.”

Sherlock humphed. “Make me.”

Something about his words compelled the unfriendly Little Sister to look at him. When Sherlock at last laid eyes on the child’s face, he saw a face that he had not seen in many years. It was a youthful, horror-stricken version of his brother’s visage.

At the sight of Sherlock, Mycroft flinched. “Sherlock!” With a gasp, he turned away again.

Sherlock caught Mycroft’s arm, holding him back. “No, I found you,” Sherlock declared. “I win! Game’s over. Let’s play a different game now!”

“What—?” 

“Let’s play house!” Sherlock clapped his hands.

His older brother recoiled from the gesture. “How can you be so free with this curse?” His voice had a remarkably high-pitched tone. “How can you so freely act like a child!”

Sherlock patiently patted Mycroft. “I am a child, couldn’t you tell? You’re a child, now, too. I’ll be the cute little brother, you can be the annoying older one, John will be the daddy…”

A new horror came upon Mycroft’s weak features. “Go away, Sherlock,” he all but pleaded. “Yes, you found me. Job well done. Now, leave me alone. You needn’t have come after me. I can find my own way back to England.”

Sherlock put on his best pout.

Its adorable effectiveness frightened Mycroft. “Why in blazes do you act like such a child?” 

As much as Sherlock wanted to be helpful, he didn’t think of himself as purposefully acting like a child. “I’m just myself,” he said. “It didn’t bother you on the big ship.”

“I had assumed your hideous behaviour to be involuntary. But it isn’t. It cannot be! I…” Mycroft stared daggers into his own tiny palms. “Everything looks different, but I am as horribly lucid as ever…”

“Why can’t you come with John and me?” Sherlock asked sweetly. “It would be silly not to.” 

A compulsion to lie warred with honesty in Mycroft’s expression. But no one could lie to Sherlock’s puppy eyes. “This fate is my own fault. I’ll not suffer the embarrassment of assistance.”

Even though that was not sound reasoning by Sherlock’s standards, he played along. “No,” he retorted, “it’s my fault, not yours. The mean people kidnapped you because of me. You must have realized that the cult was trying to revive the spirit of the apparently-lost Little Sister—that’s me—through you. They made you into a Little Sister to replace me.” Crossed arms added to the effect of his pretend fit. “If you don’t come back with us, then, I will have to blame myself!” 

Mycroft made a distinctly unhappy face. He glanced about uncomfortably. “No, you mustn’t blame yourself for what occurred,” he said awkwardly.

“Mr Lestrade will blame me, too. He’ll not be my friend anymore.”

Silence and a pained grimace made up the complete response that Mycroft returned. 

Sherlock was not afraid or hesitant to give Mycroft a shove in the right direction. “You made poor Mr Lestrade worry, by hiding away here. He hasn’t slept or eaten anything, and he seems like he’s lost all the time. He doesn’t even know if you’re alive… You better hurry back with us, so you can tell him you’re sorry!” 

“No… No, Lestrade will want nothing to do with me any longer, when he sees me…” Yet the mention of Lestrade’s unhappiness had pricked and unsettled Mycroft visibly. 

Sherlock tilted his head at Mycroft’s blindingly incorrect claim. “Oh, I get it. You’re panicking.”

“I am not.”

“You’re panicking, or else you would never say something so silly!” Sherlock giggled.

Mycroft frowned pointedly, but he couldn’t bring himself to disagree. 

“You’re not going to let Mr Lestrade go on worrying, are you? I can ask Mr B if he will carry you up with me. He’s so big and strong, it won’t be any problem!” Sherlock bounced excitedly, causing minor reverberations along the hard vent. “So, will you be the big brother for the day?”

There was a long pause while Sherlock’s older brother weighed his options. “Yes, I will follow you,” Mycroft answered guardedly. “For Lestrade’s benefit. But no, I will not play house.”

As disappointing as that was, that was good enough for Sherlock. He crawled out of the hole.

John’s arms were waiting to catch him. John was smiling for Sherlock. That smile was visible because his helmet was off, sitting unused on the ground by the parasol. “You did it, Sherlock.”

“John—”

“I know, I heard everything.” Without hesitating, John softly kissed Sherlock on the lips. The press was fondly warm, and his Big Daddy’s rough stubble felt good against Sherlock’s smooth skin. The hot, gentle intimacy of the kiss, combined with the strong embrace that held him aloft, made Sherlock dizzy with pleasant sensations. John whispered, “Don’t go actually blaming yourself for any of this again, all right?”

The love and passion that John had packed into his kiss swam through Sherlock’s little body. “Uh huh,” he sang lazily. 

John was pleased. “That’s a good boy. Now, get on me, if you would?”

Nodding eagerly, Sherlock crawled up John’s body, to nestle in his carriage. 

Mycroft peeked out of the hole tentatively.

“You, too. Come here!” John grabbed the embarrassed boy from out of the hole, and then set him down safely. “Mr Holmes, good to see you,” he added, casually, as though the man he was speaking to was not a child and did not have to tilt up his head considerably to face John.

Mycroft did his best to maintain a respectable air in front of Sherlock’s imposing soldier. “Dr Watson.” No dust came off of him as he anxiously wiped at the wrinkles in his dress. “I appreciate what you have done, for Lestrade, given that you had no obligation to do so.”

John crossed his arms cheekily. “That’s a strange way of giving thanks for rescuing you. You’re welcome, anyway. We’ll let Lestrade know we’ve found you. He’ll be ecstatic.”

“No!” A shudder of fear passed through Mycroft. “No. Do not tell him what’s become of me. I implore you.”

John soured considerably at the suggestion. “Why not?” When Mycroft gave no response, John reminded him, “He’ll have to know eventually.”

“Later, then. He will know later. Please… don’t tell him yet.”

John wasn’t of the same mind at all. “He should know right now.”

“Dr Watson,” Mycroft pleaded, the grip of his panic flaunting itself unabashedly. “Tell him you’ve found me, then, but let me be the one to show him what has become of me. This matter must be between me and Lestrade. He must see… in person.”

Still John did not agree with that position, yet he let Mycroft make his own choice.

Meanwhile, Sherlock decided to speak from his perch on top of John to the other confused Little Sisters who were watching uselessly. “That was my brother hiding in there,” he said. “Um, our brother. He was in the hole because he was sad. We are leaving the city, and he won’t get to say goodbye to all of you.”

“Oh? You are leaving?” one of the strange girls asked, redundantly.

“Yes,” Sherlock reminded himself to be patient, “but even though we want to go, we’re sad to be leaving our family. I told him that I would ask all of you to come wave goodbye to us, when we go. He won’t be sad anymore, then, if he sees all of you waving.”

“Oh.” The naive girls all believed him readily.

“We are leaving soon from the lighthouse. Will you gather everyone to say goodbye to us?”

The children agreed in perfect, blithe unison. “Okay!”

John didn’t comment on Sherlock’s rather bizarre conversation with the princesses, nor did the princesses take much note of either John or Sherlock after that point. The Big Daddies and their children dispersed, in matched pairs. The girls held the hands of their massive soldiers, who made no noise except for an exceedingly vague rumble of contentment.

For all the people whom Sherlock and John had saved, there were still countless others who would never leave Rapture. These were people stuck somewhere between illusion and reality, and yet they seemed to thrive in their circumstances. “Do you think they are happy here, Mr B?” Sherlock asked.

John nodded. “Sure, why not? We certainly were.” 

Sherlock beamed at the sincere truth of that. This had been an unrivalled time of their lives. He didn’t regret any of the long hours he’d spent with John alone, and he was especially glad to hear that his kind Big Daddy felt the same.

John returned the white parasol to Mycroft before replacing his helmet. Sherlock wasn’t sure why Mycroft refused to look at the parasol, even as he accepted it.

–

John did contact Lestrade immediately about the rescue. Regarding Mycroft’s condition, John only explained to the man that Mycroft was in a stupendous daze but otherwise unharmed. Lestrade pressed John with exclamations of gratitude and demands for updates on Mycroft’s health. 

“Oh my God,” Lestrade said breathlessly. “You’ve really got him… He’s safe now, you got him… Thank you, John. Tell Sherlock that I’m thanking him, too! Oh my God, I’m so relieved, I could fall over… Is Mycroft awake? Has he talked to you? Please, how does he look?”

“Yes, he has talked to me, as nicely as ever,” John replied, “and he looks like he needs some rest, which is what he’s doing now.”

Lestrade had been too full of relief to argue. “Right, right. That’s great. Just hurry back, then, and let Mycroft know…” There was a heartbreakingly long pause on Lestrade’s end. “L-Let him know how glad I am that he’s unharmed. All right?”

“Yeah, I will.”

Curious to see his brother’s reaction to this kindness, Sherlock stole a look at Mycroft, but his ashamed brother avoided eye contact and instead made himself and his parasol small in the carriage on John’s back.

–

The journey to the surface was rather boring, at the start.

Sherlock’s tummy was growing heavy with the ADAM that it continuously produced. A considerable amount of time had passed since John had last gently taken any large amount of it from Sherlock. Sherlock considered asking John to have some of his ADAM, but he feared that it would be too rude, present company considered. After all, unlike Sherlock, Mycroft had no Big Daddy to share his ADAM with. Sherlock didn’t want to be so inconsiderate as to mock his big brother like that.

The boring streak that the party of three was enjoying ended quickly, however. The nearer they came to the surface, the more splicers they encountered, and these addicts were not bright enough to leave well enough alone. Some wore butterfly pins; others were merely drawn in by the combined scents of two tempting Little Sisters who were protected by only one first-generation Big Daddy.

Instead of fleeing, as they should have done, the addicts took to attacking John at full force.

Most of the addicts had the presence of mind to go after the Big Daddy before rushing for the prize. It did not matter; none of them stood a chance. Even when encumbered by two little riders, John was too fast and too strong for anyone else to come close to landing a blow. John never threw the first punch himself. His basic plan of attack was to anticipate and evade their bullets and their bolt of fire or electricity, come into close quarters, and smack the enemy bluntly with his heavy drill. 

John hardly ever activated the drill as it was intended. His brute strength was enough for him. The armour plating and black mesh of his suit curved completely with his strong body as he swung his drill. It was clear that he enjoyed the satisfaction of landing every unforgiving blow against the finely-dressed ladies and gentlemen of the city, exhaling lowly while his two children held onto him and watched him fight.

“One good thing about this, Sherlock,” John joked once, after knocking one splicer repeatedly to the hard ground, “is that I’m finally getting a chance to fight for you.”

Sherlock was too flattered by that sentiment to respond eloquently. His attempt came out as, “You’re so handsome, Mr B,” which made John laugh.

Mycroft, for his part, wasn’t fond of any aspect of the violence. He was, perhaps, even more squeamish about it than Sherlock recalled him to be. At least Mycroft did not complain aloud. He was still in a great shock, of course, and it was because of this that he spoke very little. 

In any event, while Sherlock invariably zigzagged and hopped about John’s large body throughout the journey, Mycroft stayed rigidly curled inside John’s carriage.

–

While the flashy public announcements scrolled before them as they finally ascended in the bathysphere to the surface, John radioed Lestrade one last time.

“Mycroft Holmes is still with you?” Lestrade asked, unnecessarily.

Before John could say anything more than, “That’s right,” John’s second passenger hurried to speak up.

“Dr Watson, please,” Mycroft said, “give him a… warning…” His tiny hands and feet clamoured off of John’s carriage and to the ground. Self-consciously, he straightened the small dress that the cultists had clothed him in. He straightened his posture also, as well as he could, though it made him look no less shorter as he stood next to Sherlock’s giant Big Daddy. “Warn him,” Mycroft murmured, “that he may not wish to remain with me any longer, when he sees me, and that such is a choice I would not resent him for.”

“Sure, I’ll talk to him.”

Mycroft’s dainty parasol was turned over in his nervous hands once or twice.

“Hey, Greg. I just wanted to let you know that Mycroft’s… not quite as he was when you last saw him, and…” John paused to consider his words. He decided on, “He needs to see you as soon as possible.”

Mycroft glared at John for that, but to no avail. John had to swallow back a small laugh at the child’s glare, which was not the least bit intimidating. Sherlock, who was proudly hugging John’s thick neck, did not quite manage to swallow back his own.

“He needs me?” Lestrade parroted. “I don’t understand, what’s wrong? What’s happened to him?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Mycroft’s fine, but he’s, uh, going to need your help. He wants to see you right away.”

Mycroft scoffed in disbelief. “How dare you—?”

“All right!” Lestrade’s shouted message echoed around the inside of the lift. “I don’t know what this is about, but, you’d better let him that know I’ll be waiting for him by the lighthouse!” 

Then, the communication went silent, giving way to the recorded sound of an announcer extolling the virtues of the utopia that Sherlock would never again see.

–

Normally, the lighthouse was situated on a tiny, deserted island, with the lighthouse as its only remarkable feature. There was no outside indication that this lone building was secretly the entrance to a great underwater city. However, the island was not deserted today. 

Besides for the ship of moderate size that had laid anchor nearby, a single man stood outside of the lighthouse in the growing darkness, one with none of the enhancements or impairments that a citizen of Rapture could boast of. This was the wreck of a worried man who was impatiently waiting to be reunited with the brother whom Sherlock had once lost contact with.

That was the man whom Sherlock saw, when he and John left the lighthouse and breathed again the air of the surface world. 

Lestrade’s demeanour transformed into a far more optimistic one. “John? Please let that be you under all that armour, John—oh, and Sherlock! Careful, you two, don’t walk anywhere but the path this way, I have traps everywhere!” Lestrade advanced toward them. Anxious hope radiated off of him. “So, where’s my Mr Holmes? Where is he? Isn’t he supposed to be with—?” 

“I’m here.”

Lestrade stopped and looked up at the threshold of the lighthouse.

Mycroft was the last to exit. He had his parasol under one arm—it was now too great in length for him to be used as anything like a crutch. His boyish face was a study in concentrated apathy.

At first, there was no light of recognition in Lestrade’s eyes. “Oh, is that another Little Sister…?” Yet then he saw the parasol.

“I asked John not to tell you,” Mycroft said.

The awful truth of the situation began to dawn painfully on Lestrade.

“Lestrade, do not worry for me. I am unharmed. I have only had the misfortune to acquire a regrettable condition, the symptoms and consequences of which I am sure are s-self-evident.” The facade of indifference was peeling away; Mycroft started to shake in his dress. “Y-You have been a very excellent companion to me. I am ashamed that… I was not a better one to you, while I had the chance.”

Sherlock knew the look that was playing out on Lestrade’s face. It was full of worry, and horror, and most of all, devotion. Sherlock had seen that look once before, years ago. It must have been burned into his mind. “Mycroft—?”

“It is understandable, if any continued association between us is no longer agreeable to you, and if you are not inclined to forgive me for what has transpired.” Mycroft bowed his head. “My only wish is to tell you what I should have told you long before this evil transpired….” Though Mycroft tried to hide his face, Sherlock could see that slim tears were streaming down his older brother’s pale cheeks and chin. “I-It has been my greatest honour and privilege to know you. Thank you, Lestrade. For everything. Thank you. I wish you h-happiness and success in all your future endeavours.”

There was no shaking of Lestrade’s nerves, though, as he took his first steps toward the Little Sister. But steps weren’t good enough. Pebbles rolled away underneath Lestrade’s feet as he broke into a spirited run. 

The force of the man’s approach startled Mycroft. He was too startled to think of closing his lips, which had parted.

A few moments later, and Lestrade was on the ground, his relatively larger arms constricting tightly around the frightened boy. “God, I missed you!” Lestrade whispered fiercely. “I was so terrified that you wouldn’t come back! When John said they’d found you, I couldn’t breathe, Mr Holmes. I couldn’t even breathe.” Lestrade buried his fingers against Mycroft’s back and into his slightly lengthened hair. “I’m so happy to see you—to have you back safe with me! I don’t care twopence about you being a Little Sister, if that’s what you are now.”

The quivering child in the man’s arms couldn’t find the strength to argue.

“Please, let me stay with you still. That’s all I want.” Lestrade pulled back, to kiss Mycroft’s forehead. Mycroft was too shy and mortified to face him, which only motivated Lestrade to give him even more kisses. “You’re the best thing to ever happen to me. I’m not ready to lose you again.”

Sherlock knew what it was like, when Mycroft could not manage a response except to become filled with a child’s weeping. Desperation seized him. Mycroft wept like the scared boy that he now found himself to be. He gave in, and returned Lestrade’s hug. 

With a relieved smile, Lestrade held Mycroft devotedly, cradling Mycroft to himself, murmuring that everything would be all right.

“You can say it,” Sherlock said, gently. 

Lestrade misunderstood the comment. “Say… what…?”

John didn’t have to ask. Neither did Mycroft.

“Say it, Mycroft,” Sherlock pressed.

Mycroft cried, “Mr…” But his voice fell apart. 

So it was true. It shouldn’t have been true. Sherlock had always assumed that John had been part of his chemical and psychological brainwashing; it had seemed obvious that the image of John as his Big Daddy had been deliberately ingrained into him. On the other hand, Lestrade had not been there for Mycroft’s transformation, so it should have been impossible for Lestrade to hold the same deliberately sacred place in Mycroft’s warped mind.

Lestrade said softly, “Uh, you can say it, if you like…”

“Mr Bubbles,” Mycroft rasped, as if it caused him tremendous pain to admit it.

Sherlock understood. He remembered how it felt, so long ago, when he first felt an instinct to call John that, but was afraid to do so.

Oddly, the title charmed Lestrade. He accepted it like a well-earned accolade. “I guess I’m an honorary Big Daddy now,” he said, more lightly than he must have felt it. “Mycroft, listen…” Lestrade made an effort to sound perfectly sincere. “Your Mr B loves you, very, very much.”

Mycroft sobbed. “I’m so sorry for this…. If there is any way I-I can make it easier for you—”

“No, no, just don’t go, please…”

Sherlock thought the two of them hugging made a happy, romantic picture. There was still so much left in limbo between his older brother and the former Scotland Yard detective, yet now wasn’t the time for them to be concerned about the details of the future of their life together, was it? They still had a horde of ADAM addicts to prepare for. 

John’s transmitted voice called out, “Lestrade. Sorry to bother, but let me tell you something real quick.”

Lestrade looked over at the two former residents of Rapture, while Mycroft kept himself to Lestrade’s breast.

“Mycroft is going to be frightened,” John said, “because nothing around him looks like it should, and his memories are messed up. He’ll be ashamed that he didn’t foresee what this place was capable of. He’ll be terrified that he’ll forever be a child now, and he’ll be even more terrified that his dear Big Daddy won’t love him the same anymore because of it. It all feels like a nightmare to him. He’s in the panic of his life. I’m willing to bet that you’re in something of a panic, too.”

Lestrade grimaced in sympathy, and nodded bravely.

Much to Sherlock’s admiration, John was still hopeful, calm, and kind to the last. “I know what it’s like, because that’s how it was for Sherlock and me. And that’s how I know it will all work out in the end. Trust me, things will work out better for you and Mycroft than you ever thought possible. And you’re not alone. Sherlock and I are here to help you both through this, if you need it.”

Sherlock agreed with all of his heart. Of course, Sherlock didn’t know at the time quite how much help he and John would be providing in the near future. 

–

The cultists threw everything they had at the ship, as soon as the anchor came up. As planned, the ship’s crew took cover within the ship far away from the targets, while Lestrade and John stood watch over the night, each with his bug-eyed Little Sister right behind him.

The addicts seemed to come from everywhere, shrieking outrage after outrage at the four. They called for the saving of the blessed Little Sisters, or alternatively the blood of the unholy demons who would dare remove Little Sisters from their sanctum. Each addict was heavily armed. Some had umbrellas, some had revolvers, and others used plasmid bolts. All were impeccably dressed, and none were friendly. Many of them were caught by plasmid and turret traps, which Lestrade had prepared in advance, but not all of them were.

Lestrade—with Mycroft—kept some distance with his revolver, while John—with Sherlock—met them head on, violently bashing them off of the deck and into the water or the rocks of the island’s coast. 

This attack was more organised than any attack previous. The addicts attacked in groups, which was highly unusual. They all but pushed each other in their frenzy to grab at Sherlock or Mycroft. John fought valiantly to protect both Little Sisters, running his drill into the masquerade masks of splicers without any compunction.

Sherlock cheered sweetly, “Go Mr Bubbles!”

John stood tall, and rolled his shoulders. “That’s right,” John breathed deeply, “Mr Bubbles is going to kick all their bloody arses for you.”

“Thank you, Mr B,” Sherlock giggled. “Oh, um, Mr Lestrade,” Sherlock called out behind himself, “could you please shoot the water with your lightning plasmid?”

Lestrade made no pretence of hiding the way Sherlock and John’s in-battle dialogue bewildered him. “Uh, what on earth for?”

“There are some mean people hiding underneath the ship,” Mycroft answered before Sherlock. “That’s how they followed us last time.”

“Oh, my pleasure, then!” The veins of Lestrade’s hand thrummed with an ungodly blue, before Lestrade shot several bolts of lightning into the water. Immediately several bodies sprang from the ocean and up onto the deck. “What are you ugly freaks waiting for?” Lestrade challenged them. “Come at me!”

They never made it to Lestrade, though. John went straight for them. The terror of this protective Big Daddy was starting to override the religious zealotry of the cultists, who at least made some attempt to regroup defensively against John. It was in vain; John dodged every bullet and landed every blow of his bludgeoning weapon. Sherlock loved the heroic figure that John made as he kept the cultists from even getting close to either Little Sister. Every heavy grunt of exertion that escaped John was music to Sherlock’s ears.

Suddenly, the wave of ADAM addicts with the butterfly pins paused in their tracks. 

Lestrade wondered aloud, “Eh?”

The boarding party ceased to assault the ship’s deck at all. Instead, they all turned on their heels and made a confused run back to the island.

The explanation was obvious: on the island, countless newer-model Big Daddies and their Little Sisters appeared, some from within the island’s waters and some from the lighthouse. The Big Daddies did not outnumber the cult, though without a doubt they absolutely overpowered them. “Bye-bye!” the naive little girls shouted gleefully to the four on the ship’s deck, even while their titanic guardians continued to fight and send the mad cultists back home to the bottom of the ocean.

“Bye!” Sherlock called back to the eternal children. He crawled up onto John’s shoulders to give them a farewell wave.

“Good job, Sherlock,” John whispered slyly. “That was all you.”

Sherlock flushed with pleasure at the simple praise.

Mycroft was not as demonstratively cheerful as Sherlock. He merely stayed by Lestrade’s leg as they all watched the island grow smaller.

John popped off his helmet and set it by the ship’s railing. Sherlock supposed that John might never again have cause to wear it. That was more than satisfactory to Sherlock, of course. He preferred his Big Daddy without it.

The four of them stood there in silence for some little time, each taking the moment to consider the full reality of his new situation. Each Big Daddy held onto his Little Sister’s hand. Sherlock wasn’t frightened by reality. In truth, he was greatly looking forward to his future in the London castle with his big, handsome John to love and to sleep with. Sherlock was even looking forward to finally having a playmate his own age, too, assuming he could get permission from John for Mycroft to come over and play. Certainly, John would be watching them at all times anyway, so John would probably say yes…?

Lestrade sighed with relief. “Battle’s over, eh? We’re going home, for real, this time?”

“Yeah. Looks like it…” John sighed. “Greg, I’ve been thinking. There’s something Sherlock and I can give you, to help you and Mycroft out a little, if it’s fine with you, Sherlock.”

“Oh, you mean the lubricant, Mr B?” Sherlock asked innocently.

Mycroft and Lestrade turned horribly red at the suggestion, and though they exchanged mortified glances, neither spoke. 

That was a surprise to Sherlock. He wasn’t sure how he could have provoked such a reaction. They certainly would need lubricant, eventually. They didn’t plan on going all the way without it, did they? That would be awfully hard on Mycroft, Sherlock thought.

“Ha, no, I don’t mean that.” John gently lifted Sherlock up and held him like a baby. “I’ve got something even more important in mind. It’s one of my audio logs—on the day when morality and I came to terms, more or less.”


	3. Chapter 3

After they’d informed the crew that all was safe again, John led the party back to the quarters that he and Sherlock were sharing. It was warm inside, a welcome contrast to the coolness of the night air. John led the way through the living room of the quarters, past the bathroom, to the bedroom—where a fireplace had once again already been lit for them. The phonograph sat idle, on the small table beside the lone armchair.

Neither Lestrade nor Mycroft was entirely comfortable with intruding into the private space of another couple. Lestrade lingered awkwardly in the centre of the bedroom, while without explanation Mycroft took the liberty of checking for clothes in the bedroom’s closet. 

John set Sherlock down at the foot of the bed, before going to stand by the door to remove his armour. Sherlock watched the plating come off of his Big Daddy with interest. His slim legs dangled freely and carelessly off the edge of the bed.

Having failed to find whatever it was he was searching for in the closet, Mycroft approached Sherlock. “Sherlock, you wouldn’t happen to have brought with you an extra full set of clothes in your size—clean?” 

“Hm… I don’t know, maybe Mr B packed one. Why, what’s wrong with your dress? I think it’s pretty.”

Mycroft was not amused. “Nothing is wrong with this young lady’s dress, save that it is a young lady’s dress, and filthy…” Mycroft pinched at his dress irritably. “I can only suppose the psychotic fellows who dressed me thought young lady’s dresses to be the standard uniform of the Little Sisters…”

“It looks clean to me, though.”

“It is also clean to my eyes. It is my reason,” Mycroft stressed the word almost to absurdity, “that suggests to me that it must be filthy.”

Sherlock grinned gloriously. “But you can’t see it, so it might as well be clean, right?”

Judging from his revolted grimace, Mycroft was not inclined to agree.

As he considered Mycroft’s query, Sherlock recalled that John had packed another set or two of Sherlock’s acquired clothes into the bag of belongings lounging by the bureau. It was this bag that John was just now removing a cassette player from, which he presented to Lestrade. 

“My audio diary,” John said, “specifically the one where I recorded everything I needed to know to be a good Big Daddy for Sherlock, though I never did forget any of it. Sherlock kept every journal I ever recorded, so there’s plenty more, but this is the one you’ll want to hear.”

“Thanks.” Lestrade glanced around the room. “Uh, should I have a listen to it now, right here?”

“Yeah, go on, mate. Mycroft, too. Have a seat, guys.” John waved his hand to the armchair. “Make yourself at home.”

“Uh…”

“I will stand,” Mycroft said dispassionately. 

Lestrade followed his leader’s example. “Yeah, I’ll stand, too.”

“Sure. Your choice.” John picked up the child who idolised him, sat on the bed himself, and rested Sherlock on his lap. “Is this good, Sherlock?”

Nothing could be better for Sherlock than the feel of John’s firm thighs and torso bolstering his own little counterparts, even though they were separated by the fabric of Sherlock’s clothes and John’s black, flexible under-suit. “Uh huh!”

“Good.” John tenderly nuzzled Sherlock’s springy hair. “I love you.”

Sherlock sighed happily. “I love you, too, Mr Bubbles.”

Mycroft bit his lip, and averted his eyes.

Lestrade almost said something, but the words didn’t come.

“Go on,” John encouraged Lestrade.

Semi-reluctantly, Lestrade clicked on the cassette player.

“… Let’s try this again.” It was John’s voice, dedicated and strong. “These are my notes on… what happened to Sherlock. My dear, sweet Sherlock… He’s a baby now. I don’t know how they did it to him—God, I don’t care how they did it.” A deep inhale. “Sherlock was… terrified, at first. He tried not to talk to me, for a while, because he was ashamed of his voice. He was scared of the impulses left over from his programming—like calling me Mr B, or hiding in the vents. And his vision was so altered that he couldn’t recognise so many things.”

There was a silent pause.

“He’s better now,” John’s voice continued, with increased spirit. “He does behave like a child now, but… it’s not as simple as it seems. It’s nothing to do with the programming; he didn’t start acting like a child until later. It must be something else. I thought that it might be his mind’s way of making sense of the skewed world that he sees now, but I don’t believe that’s it, either. No, he’s…” A short, tired laugh. “He’s rolling with it, by God! Different vision, with different instincts—but the same personality, the same man! It’s Sherlock’s mind, adapting on its own to a child’s body!

“And, well… I’m so grateful he’s found a way to cope. He’s not depressed anymore, and he smiles all the time. I’m so happy, I can barely believe it. Did I help him get to this point? I wish I knew. I’ve never stopped loving him, and I’ve never stopped treating him as my husband. No, that’s not completely true; out of my concern for his child’s form, I was too careful with him. How could I not be? He’s so very small and vulnerable now, and it would kill me if I hurt him by mistake…

“But I, too, am changed. I have become even stronger, I have some new instincts from the programming, and most importantly, I have to consume Sherlock’s ADAM to live. His ADAM… My dear Sherlock was so embarrassed by his body, but when he needed me to get the ADAM out of him, I did it, and… yes, I’ve gone on doing it. Almost every day since, I’m sure. Maybe I’ll burn in hell for it, but, why would I? Sherlock’s my husband. He’s stunningly beautiful. He’s the brilliant love of my life. If I still have the power to make him feel good and keep him safe, then there isn’t a damn thing that should keep me from him. Sherlock, my lovely baby, the sweetest man who ever lived—I vow that I will always do whatever it takes for you to go on smiling.”

There was a final click. The tape’s message was finished. 

Sherlock felt bright and shiny inside, aside from the general weightiness in his abdomen.

Lestrade was the first to speak. “Can I ask, what was that last part about? It sounded… kind of nice. Do you… eat ADAM, then?”

“Yes,” John answered simply. “All ADAM is made inside the bodies of Little Sisters. The body makes it continuously, so it has to be expelled from time to time, usually daily. Sherlock and Mycroft are both a bit past due, so they should be feeling a bit full of ADAM. Bona fide Big Daddies, such as myself, happen to need to consume some of it.”

Lestrade pulled an uncomfortable face. “When you say they expel it…?”

“He means that Little Sisters must regurgitate their ADAM,” Mycroft said, somewhat uncertainly. 

“Oh…” Lestrade and Mycroft glanced at each other. Sherlock supposed that each was trying to discern the other’s position on the subject. That was silly of them, though, or at least Sherlock thought so, since they could just as easily ask it of each other. 

John smirked. “Regurgitate it? Not necessarily. That’s just what the girls do with it. It’s very different for Sherlock, however. He’s never thrown up any.”

“Then how do you get it out of Sherlock?” Lestrade wanted to know. “If, uh, you don’t mind my asking.”

“I’ll tell you the answer to that, if you sit down, and you agree to stay put until you’ve heard everything I have to tell you.”

“In the one chair?” Lestrade scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry, I would, but… that’s not exactly… proper, is it? Me and him sharing a seat?”

For a long, agonised moment, Mycroft stared sharply at Lestrade.

“What,” John parried firmly, “you mean like Sherlock and I are doing right now?”

Poor Lestrade couldn’t answer that. 

Fortunately for him, Mycroft interrupted him before he could speak. “Lestrade,” he nearly whispered, “I’ve changed my mind. Would you kindly sit with me?”

It was Lestrade’s turn to stare. 

“If it would please you, that is,” Mycroft added, self-consciously.

“Are you sure you want to? In front of these two?”

Mycroft fought visibly to push back his reservations. “Yes, we have nothing to fear from them,” he struggled to say. “Please… Lestrade.”

For his prudish older brother’s benefit, Sherlock sent him a gesture of blowing an invisible bubble wand.

Mycroft smiled impulsively at the childish message, despite himself. “Please, Mr B,” he corrected himself, taking Sherlock’s meaning to heart.

“All right!” Lestrade nodded eagerly. He didn’t need to be told three times. He took Mycroft into his lap, and together they made their place on the armchair. Lestrade’s shirtsleeves came shyly around Mycroft’s waist. “Uh… comfortable?”

“Yes… Yes.” The child gradually let himself relax.

“Then, I guess we agree to stay put here, John. Please, tell me,” Lestrade spoke with the duty of love, “what I’ve got to do.”

“Brilliant. Greg, Mycroft, listen closely. First thing’s first: Greg, I don’t know what would happen if you consumed any of Mycroft’s ADAM. I need Sherlock’s to live, but you should be careful. You might become dependent on it, and that never worked out for any of the addicts in Rapture.”

Lestrade nodded. “I’ll try not to do anything too stupid.”

“Glad to hear it. Next thing: don’t panic, either of you. There’s no cause for alarm. Yes, ADAM is something that both of you will have to live with, and frankly I wish I could give you both more time to get adjusted to Mycroft’s new size without you having to learn to manage this other thing. That being said… For these two Little Sisters, ADAM won’t come out of the mouth. It comes out… here.” John demonstratively patted the front of Sherlock’s trousers, prompting a sparkling titter from the boy.

To his credit, Lestrade made an effort to take John’s lesson seriously. “It’s his… piss?”

Mycroft, on the other hand, was unsettled by John’s words. A shadow of discomposure crossed his sharp expression. He anxiously glanced down at himself and touched his dress-covered stomach.

“No, it’s not piss,” John said.

Lestrade didn’t understand. “But it comes out like piss?”

“No. It comes out of his body,” John explained patiently, “when he climaxes.”

Lestrade’s head fell back.

When he observed a baffled sense of horror growing on both Mycroft’s and Lestrade’s features, Sherlock did his best to help explain. “It doesn’t hurt!” he confidently assured them. “John makes me feel really nice, and then I give him a yummy treat to eat!”

Their two guests were thoroughly horrified. 

“But I can’t—” Lestrade started. 

“But that’s not—” Mycroft started, simultaneously.

“Sh,” John interrupted them firmly. “I’m not asking for your reaction yet. Give it a minute to process. All I need you two to do right now is listen to me and Sherlock. I know what rubbish is running through your heads. We had it, too. Mycroft, if you’re afraid that you’re too young for Greg now, just remember that Sherlock was afraid he was too young for me, too, but he wasn’t. And Greg,” John smirked knowingly, “I get what’s it like. I, too, was terrified that I would hurt or confuse Sherlock, et cetera, or that I would generally be a heinous person if I went on loving him like I wanted to.”

That was an absurd manner of thought. “Mr Bubbles could never be bad to me,” Sherlock murmured. “Mr B is the one who keeps me safe.” 

There was a hearty, affectionate kiss to the top of Sherlock’s head. “That’s right,” John said smoothly.

For Sherlock, there was no resisting the bright beam that demanded to be worn whenever John treated him so kindly. “Mr B,” Sherlock tilted his head up to inquire innocently, “if Mycroft and Mr Lestrade are worried about sharing ADAM, why don’t we show them how we do it?”

Naturally, he hadn’t thought it to be so farfetched a suggestion before he’d spoken it. He gave John his ADAM all the time. If Mycroft and Lestrade were at all uneasy about so marvellous an act of love and closeness, then they simply didn’t understand what it meant to give and receive ADAM, and therefore a demonstration ought to help them overcome their misunderstanding.

The two members of their audience, however, reacted very much with unsupportive surprise and indignity at the idea.

Mycroft coughed, his face aflame with discomfort. “Brother, by Jove—!”

Lestrade was similarly scandalised. His body reeled. “Really—!” 

“No.” A powerful, hard voice cut them off once more, swiftly and without a stammer. “Minute’s not up, you two,” John paternally reminded them, his voice as powerful and decisive as the edge of knife. “I’ll tell you when it is, got it?”

Mycroft and Lestrade both blanched at being thus ordered about. Neither of them could muster an argument against it; it seemed to Sherlock that neither of them wished to. 

“That’s better,” John rewarded them with his smiling approval, and Sherlock was positive that the cheeks of the two guests in their quarters actually flushed with colour at John’s praise.

Sherlock giggled sweetly. No one could take care of things like his masterful Big Daddy could.

“Sherlock, I understand what you’re thinking, and it’s brilliant.” John turned Sherlock round on his large lap to face him. “You want them to see for themselves how normal it is for a Little Sister and a Big Daddy to get on, yeah? That’s very clever of you.”

Sherlock blushed cheerfully. “Thank you, Mr B…”

“Still, that might be a sight more than they’re ready for,” John laughed, and both Lestrade and Mycroft were guilty of letting out quiet sighs of relief. After a moment of consideration, however, John hummed thoughtfully. “On the other hand, we could show them what a proper kiss looks like, don’t you agree?”

Without waiting another moment, and much to Sherlock’s joy, John held Sherlock’s face in his powerfully built, gentle hands and gave him a long, loving kiss on the lips. His lusty Big Daddy caressed him as if it were the most natural and self-evident act in the world. John’s rough whiskers felt strangely nice on his too-soft skin; the feel of John’s rugged hands guiding him through the organic motions of the embrace was pure bliss. The intense heat of John’s large mouth captivated Sherlock and drew him in, encouraging him to let himself fall into John’s warm, safe care. Sherlock did so. He whimpered with sheepish satisfaction, as the physical dominance of John’s body inside of him and outside of him filled him with sensations of pleasure and belonging.

John was right. A long time ago, life had not been easy for Sherlock and John, back when Sherlock had thought himself too little. Sometimes still, that old doubt crept back upon Sherlock, and made him uncertain. Yet such doubts never lingered long. It simply felt too good to be John’s little boy. John’s tongue was so much greater than his own; John’s body was like a bed itself, with long arms for a quilt, in comparison to Sherlock’s pillow-sized body. John’s kiss even had a hungry, needy edge to it. John needed something from Sherlock, and it must have been this deep need which compelled John to consume Sherlock’s small mouth like his life depended upon it.

At last, John gave them both a chance to breathe. “God, I love you, Sherlock, very much,” he promised, with a gratified groan, pressing his forehead ever so softly against Sherlock’s. His brawny fingers rose to possessively coil the curly, energetic locks of hair which connected with them. 

Sherlock’s reply was immediate and full of conviction. “I love you, too, John!” he cried. It didn’t matter if the words did come out of his mouth in a child’s tremor, in a note that was higher than that of most any adult’s. Being a child was fine—as long as he was John’s darling child. With all of his soul, Sherlock knew that the only reason he had been put on this earth was to be the precious babe of this eminently good man who happened to have the inhuman musculature and lightning reflexes of a dangerous machine.

“You want to hear something interesting, Sherlock?” This was spoken darkly, and suggestively. “I’ll tell you a little secret.” Two mighty thighs underneath Sherlock propped him with a bounce, to bring him closer to John’s playful grin. John’s breath was criminally hot against Sherlock’s cooler skin. “Your love,” he whispered conspiratorially, managing to hold off his telltale grin until the end, “is all I’ve ever wanted.”

Sherlock squealed. “Really?” That made him so happy that his hands shook. 

John cupped Sherlock’s tiny fists within his own, using his own certain strength to steady them. “Really.” 

It was too wonderful a thing, to be so important to his daddy. Sherlock couldn’t help it; he sniffled as grateful tears came to his glowing eyes. “M-Me too, Mr B!”

John’s grin widened. The air around them was hushed and sweet as John covered Sherlock in a chaste, devoted hug. 

Until, “Good lord,” someone far from them, but not terribly far, said breathlessly. It was Lestrade.

That was when Sherlock remembered that they had an audience. Neither Lestrade nor Mycroft was disgusted. Shocked, more like, but not in a bad way. Sherlock was glad for it. He wanted his new (old) friends to not be afraid of love anymore.

Lestrade was deeply moved, to the point of being confused by it. “That was… I mean to say, you two were… beautiful.” The man frowned at himself. “Is that the word I should be using?”

Mycroft was less effusive, though no less moved. Motionless, he only stared at Sherlock, as if seeing him for the first time.

That was when John decided to finally let them off the hook. “All right, I think you two have heard and seen enough for one evening. Go, Lestrade, take Mycroft somewhere private. Talk to him. Really talk to him. If you can get his ADAM, great. If for any reason you can’t, and it’s hurting him, come back right away and we’ll see what we can do about it. Whatever you do, don’t panic. Everyone’s alive and well, everything will work out, and Sherlock and I are right next door if you need us.”

Lestrade nodded his awkward thanks, and also muttered something to that effect. Mycroft’s response was largely silent and ambiguous, though the little boy appeared to agree with the man whose lap he was likely pretending that he wasn’t sitting on. That pretence came to an end as both Lestrade and Mycroft quickly found their feet.

Sherlock was somewhat sad to see his friends Lestrade and Mycroft leave them so soon. Nonetheless, the two of them did leave; they left the bedroom together—not with one carrying the other bridal style, as John and Sherlock might have done, but hand in hand at least. Sherlock heard the door to their quarters slide open and closed.

“Finally,” John said through a released groan, which had evidently been held back. “Finally.”

“What is it, Mr B?”

“Nothing, except that you smell so good, Sherlock. You’ve smelled terribly good for hours.” John demonstratively sniffed along Sherlock’s upper body, in a manner that was at once facetious and salacious. “You’re so full of ADAM, aren’t you?”

“Oh, uh huh…” There had been a dull ache in him for some time, but it hadn’t been the focus of his attention, especially during the return trip of their rescue mission. “Do you want some?” Sherlock politely inquired, making sure not to misbehave by assuming that John would necessarily want to—

“Yes,” John purred, and Sherlock found himself being pulled in for another longing, passionate kiss by a force greater and more possessive than Sherlock knew how to comprehend. With a predatory growl, John undid Sherlock’s shirt, button by button, relishing the reveal of every inch of Sherlock’s light skin. John carefully removed it from his boy’s small arms. “Lie back for me, okay?”

Now bare form the waist up, Sherlock made to scoot up to the head of the bed, where the pillows were, to be in the right spot for John, but John stopped him.

“No, Little One, stay right where you are. Lie back here for me. Don’t you worry about a thing. Let me take care of you.”

Sherlock had no compunction about doing so. “Okay.” He fell flat against the bed dramatically. His short legs fell over the foot of the bed.

John unbuttoned Sherlock’s tiny trousers without difficulty. Somehow, the sight of his cherished John removing Sherlock’s miniature clothing from his delicate lower body—a lower body which longed for even more of John’s unyielding touch—was an exhilaration all its own. 

Sherlock lifted up his legs, so that John could slide off his longest garment with ease, leaving him in only his undergarment. He didn’t have to look down to know that he was half-hard for his Big Daddy already. His small arousal was barely concealed by his underwear.

John stroked the boy’s naked tummy. “Does it hurt?”

“No, Mr B… but it does feel like a lot…”

“It looks like a lot, too. You made so much for me. You’re so good to me.” With a gentle touch, John slowly rubbed the naked, sensitive expanse of Sherlock’s stomach.

Delicious shocks sparked through Sherlock’s helpless body. He sighed at the sensation. “Mr B…”

“Go on,” John assured him. “Relax, just like that. Let me do everything.” 

His physical need for John only grew in strength under John’s soothing caresses. “Yes, Mr B…”

“Not that it’s a problem, but is there any particular reason you didn’t ask for this sooner? It’s been a little while since we did this, hasn’t it? And I do love taking care of you whenever I can.”

It was true, Sherlock normally never waited this long before blithely offering his insistent gift to John. “I, um, didn’t want to be rude in front of Mycroft,” he said meekly, not wanting John to think that Sherlock had meant to avoid John in any way. “He didn’t have a Big Daddy.” 

“Oh, I see. Huh, I never would have thought of that.” One of John’s thumbs took a break from indulging in Sherlock’s light tummy to pet Sherlock’s cheek. “That was very noble of you.”

That golden praise raised Sherlock’s spirits to the clouds. He was proud to have done John proud.

“Hypothetically, if Mycroft’s Big Daddy had been there with us,” John went on, “you would have asked me to help you with your ADAM, then?” 

“Uh huh!” If that had been the case, Sherlock would have merrily thrown himself into John’s arms.

“You really don’t mind if the two of them are watching or not?”

“No, I don’t mind…” Such a situation almost had an appeal of its own to Sherlock, though he wasn’t really sure if it wasn’t merely the appeal of their friendship, and nothing to do with the situation in mind. Quite simply, Sherlock thought that the former detective and his own older brother were nice people to be around.

Then, without warning, divine inspiration incited John to ask Sherlock a simple, non-judgemental question, for which Sherlock was entirely unprepared, and taken aback by:

“Do you care about them a lot, Greg and Mycroft?” 

Sherlock wasn’t sure what to say to that. Perhaps he did care about them to an unusual extent, though that would be absurd of him to admit, as he was very aware that he hardly knew them. “You’re the one I love, Mr B!”

John couldn’t resist a satisfied smile. “Right. And I love you. But there’s something else to this, isn’t there? I heard you tell Mycroft—while you and he were in that hole in the wall—that you wanted to play house. You still want to play house, Sherlock?” John gave a particularly strong pull down Sherlock’s flawless skin, making him whimper. “Do you want Greg and Mycroft to stick around?”

Too soon, the strong grip giving him a pleasant massage moved away. Sherlock was bothered by the loss, until he saw that John was fetching the container of lubricant, which they had used not long ago. Sherlock innocently watched how John discarded his gloves and covered his fingers with the substance.

“You care about everyone we meet, but those two fellows must be special to you. Maybe you’ve started thinking of them as… family.” John grinned. “Yeah, that’s it. Family. My little baby wants a little family, doesn’t he?”

Sherlock was startled by the suggestion. Sherlock’s mind hadn’t cast his own desires in that way before. Did he want a family? 

John’s eyebrows lifted. “Ha! Ah ha! So that’s why you like when I’m your daddy!”

Mortified and stunned by the blazing truth of that, Sherlock hid his own face behind his two feeble palms. 

“It’s okay, Sherlock. I’ll be the daddy, and I’ll get you a proper family to play with.” Sherlock felt a kiss against the miniature knuckles of his hands. “Won’t you come out, now? I miss you.”

Sherlock’s palms parted cautiously. 

In the few seconds when he’d blocked his own vision, Sherlock had forgotten how fantastic it was to have John’s handsome, grinning face so close and focused upon him. Sherlock couldn’t look away. “Ah, hello, again.” John gave Sherlock a peck on the cheek, while continuing to massage his small, pale torso with hands that were rather much larger than they needed to be for the job. 

It was indulgently naive of the infatuated Little Sister, yet nevertheless he giggled childishly at the attention, as a damsel might giggle at chaste flattery.

“It shouldn’t be too hard for me to put it all together for you. You said before that Mycroft would be the older brother. I’ve got to wonder, what does that make Greg?”

Sherlock didn’t even have to consider it. “Second daddy,” he answered. 

“Hm, second daddy? Are you sure? Not… uncle, maybe?”

“Second daddy!” Instantly, feeling shy for making such an outburst, Sherlock bowed his small chin into his clavicle. “Oh, um, if that is okay…” 

“You’d better believe it’s okay. Greg’s the second daddy, Mycroft’s the big brother. I’ll be the main daddy, of course, and you’ll be the baby. How’s that? We’ll play house sometime, all of us, just like that.”

“That… that… that sounds like so much fun, Mr B!” Sherlock was already more excited than he could account for. He didn’t know why he liked the idea so much, except that the striking mental image of John as the strapping, able-bodied daddy zapped a funny feeling down through his legs.

“Fantastic. Oh, but not right now. Right now, it’s just you and me.” John gave the black bodysuit adorning his large body a critical once-over. “Eh, do you want your knight to put on some proper clothes first? I’m still in my soldier gear, and I guess that’s not too romantic, even for a Little Sister. Last time I made love to you, I was dressed as a proper gentleman.”

Wonderfully heating all over at the dark suggestiveness mixed with John’s kindness, Sherlock shook his head. “I can see your big muscles better this way, Mr B,” Sherlock replied sweetly. “You look so intimidating!” 

John good-naturedly fingered down Sherlock’s slim neck. “Hm, is that what you like? Intimidating?”

Those forceful yet considerate fingers on Sherlock’s susceptible neck sent a pretty rush through his abdomen, down his slender thighs. “Um…” Sherlock shyly turned his head. At this moment, he was much too ashamed to admit that he rather liked when John was a bit scary. It wasn’t as if John could actually frighten him; no one in the world could frighten Sherlock less. Sherlock avoided the question by asking his own. “Um, I don’t know… Do you like how cute I am?” He tried to make himself as cute as possible, by pursing his lips and fluttering his eyelashes. 

The childish display did not go unappreciated. “Yes, why, you’re as cute as a kitten.” John effortlessly stroked the boy’s neck with greater pressure, bringing Sherlock back to him once more. “Come on, my dear, lovely Sherlock, let’s play house together,” he muttered in a husky tone, and Sherlock gulped in anticipation.

–

Mycroft didn’t realise until he and Lestrade were restored to their own quarters that he had been so wrapped up in his own thoughts and uncertainties that he had forgotten his parasol in the rooms in use by Sherlock and John. It was a fleeting thought, however. He never wanted to see that damned object again—it was only a cruel reminder to him of how his mind had been hideously warped. Besides, he had significantly more pressing concerns at the moment.

Lestrade had respectfully declined to say anything on the ship’s deck, while they ran the risk of passing by various crew members. That kind of discretion was a habit that Lestrade had learned from Mycroft. Mycroft, for his part, had learned the opposite from Lestrade; Lestrade’s bright and brazen spirit had taught him, by example, that there are circumstances in which it is better to not be discreet.

Out in the real world, in the presence of other people, Lestrade always did as Mycroft directed him. But not here. Here, in their quarters, was Lestrade’s territory. 

“Do you feel it?” Lestrade asked, once he was down on his knees in front of his child.

Mycroft was loathe to respond straightforwardly. Yes, he did feel the aggregation of ADAM inside himself. It wasn’t a bad feeling, per se. There had even been a distinct pleasantness to it, while he had been sitting in Lestrade’s lap—and may the heavens forgive him for that. It wasn’t lust, however. It couldn’t possibly be. It felt much more innocent than that—but, like lust, it was insistent, and very particularly directed toward one person.

Lestrade bowed his head. “Uh… sorry…”

Mycroft blinked. How silly of him; he’d forgotten to answer! “No, my apologies. Yes, I do feel it.”

“Oh.” The man tried his best to sound caring without sounding condescending. “Does it hurt?”

Mycroft shook his head. Only if pain was a magnificent feeling of desire, could he be said to be hurt. “No, not at all. I am fine. There is no urgency.” That last assertion was probably not as true as Mycroft would have preferred, however.

A faint shadow of disappointment crossed Lestrade’s honest expression. 

Mycroft narrowed his eyes at that.

“Uh, that’s good,” Lestrade said. 

“Greg?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you recognise me?” Mycroft asked, wishing with everything that he had that Lestrade didn’t think of him any differently. It was not the fairest thing to ask, when he hadn’t recognised his own disturbing reflection in the glass panes of Rapture’s lonesome hallways.

“I, uh… yeah, I do. Er… I don’t remember your hair being as red as this… but, it’s your nose.” Lestrade gave a small, shy sort of smile. “Your nose is exactly the same.”

Mycroft’s lips mirrored that smile. “Ah.” It was true that his hair had darkened with age into a shade more similar to Sherlock’s, though he’d never supposed his nose to be so distinctive a feature.

“What about you? I’ve been wondering, do I look the same to you, in your Little Sister vision?”

Thankfully, that was indeed the case. Mycroft was glad for that constancy. “You look significantly larger,” he replied.

“Right, I guess I would… even if I’m not big and tough like John is!”

That didn’t sound right to Mycroft. “You are big to me,” he heard himself insist. He meant it seriously, too, even though it sounded ridiculous to his own ears. Lestrade was not a demon in human form, unlike Dr John Watson, nor did Mycroft expect Lestrade to be like Sherlock’s beloved doctor. The Lestrade whom Mycroft had come to rely upon was a man whose greatest strength was not in his limbs, but in his compassion. On the other hand, Lestrade was actually quite muscular in body for someone who was not a genuine Big Daddy.

Lestrade took it as a compliment. A gorgeous light dawned behind Lestrade’s eyes.

Mycroft wanted to see more of that. He held Greg’s hands, and was relieved to have the grip returned. “Greg, you have been kind to not mention the irony of this situation.”

“Uh, I’m sorry but, what irony?”

That gave Mycroft pause. It was obvious, wasn’t it? “The only reason that I arranged for this trip was to bring a source of ADAM to London. I got what I wished for, you see. I didn’t even need Sherlock in the end.”

“Oh!” Lestrade grinned at his own simple-mindedness. “With all this excitement, I hadn’t thought about that at all…”

Mycroft was amused, too; that irony had shamed him painfully for some time now, yet Lestrade hadn’t taken the least notice of it.

“Actually, I’ve been feeling guilty about something, too.”

The amusement fell away into shocked disbelief. Mycroft couldn’t imagine what someone like Lestrade could possibly have to feel guilty about.

That disbelief must have been loud on Mycroft’s face, because Lestrade retorted, “Really, I’ve been a right bastard. When I found out what Sherlock and John were really about, I didn’t want to believe it. I thought Sherlock was a kid… I didn’t want to think about how two people could still be romantic like that when one of them becomes a kid, but… now I hate myself for being such a hypocrite!” Lestrade groaned with an exaggerated passion, the pure amplification of which incited a sympathetic smirk from Mycroft. Lestrade puffed out as if from exhaustion. “God above, I was never more wrong about anything. For me, that’s really saying something.”

A frown quickly replaced Mycroft’s smirk. It was painful for Mycroft to hear Greg talk like that. It was too often, from Mycroft’s point of view, that Lestrade underestimated himself. “No, don’t say that, Greg. Please.”

Lestrade blinked in surprise.

Anxiously, Mycroft bit his lip. “Ah… Well, you should know that I am… a hypocrite, as well. I never believed I would understand… how Sherlock could manage to find happiness in such a diminished form as this, until you… accepted me…” One of his tiny feet bashfully kicked the other. It was an act which he only took note of after the fact, and to his chagrin. That was much too childish of him. He straightened out. “Oh, um, sorry—”

In a flurry of emotion, Lestrade hugged Mycroft’s small dress-adorned figure tightly against his giant chest. “No, no,” he whispered, “don’t be. Go ahead, do that thing with your feet, if you want! I… I know it’s still you, Mycroft… It’s still you.”

Hesitantly, Mycroft clutched Lestrade’s shoulders. This man was more than he deserved. Wave after wave of unconditional love showered over Mycroft, and he hoped that his own heart and his own small arms and body were capable of returning at least a fraction of that affectionate sentiment. He didn’t want to confront the baser consequences of Little Sisterhood, not yet, not while he could still maintain enough dignity to embrace his good Lestrade—to look him in the eye. He could only wish—in vain, ultimately—that they could stay like this, in this embrace, forever. If that were possible, then nothing would have the power to ruin what was already heartbreakingly perfect.

–

Weak, tiny moans flowed out from Sherlock, one after the other. John’s enormous fingers were terribly warm inside of him. Those fingers were preparing him expertly, using just the right amount of tenderness and pressure to tease Sherlock’s tight body awake.

“You’re doing so good,” John said, and a hot blush burned in Sherlock’s babyish face. “Your Big Daddy is going to make you release all that pretty ADAM of yours. You’ll paint it on your stomach, won’t you? And then I’ll lick it all up for you. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

It was humiliating how much Sherlock enjoyed the thought of it. He hummed shyly in approval.

“God, you are so cute,” John whispered. “My soft, beautiful Sherlock. I’m going to take care of you. I’ll make love to you, and you’ll feel just how beautiful you are.” He smiled. “How beautiful you’ve always been to your daddy, who couldn’t be prouder of you.”

Sherlock whined keenly. His small length grew straighter and heavier for his Big Daddy. Sherlock couldn’t possibly have done anything in life to deserve such wonderful acceptance as this. 

John’s own gaze dropped to the uncovered, healthy evidence of Sherlock’s need. He licked his lips hungrily, “my pretty boy. I love it when you’re so excited.”

Debauched desire, and an underlying innocent fervour to be useful to his husband, shivered through Sherlock’s little arms and legs. It meant the world to Sherlock that he could satisfy John’s wants.

Having wetted and stretched Sherlock’s entrance completely, John moved back half a step to undo his own black trousers. He did it with deliberate slowness, which was fortunate for Sherlock, because he wanted to watch. 

Sherlock was always curious to see what John looked like underneath his body armour, and the sight of a dark, curly mat of hair springing forth from John’s crotch was what his eyes fixed on first. The second thing his eyes fixed on was even more intriguing, though. John’s was like Sherlock’s, except that it was wide and long as Sherlock’s would never be. Even though Sherlock already knew that John’s girth would fit inside of him, it was hard to believe that by sight, given John’s great size, grown large by a fiery lust.

“Daddy will leave the rest of his suit on for now, for you,” John winked, much to Sherlock’s delighted embarrassment. “He knows how much you like it.” John lifted up each of Sherlock’s thin legs, to rest each bare foot against his own wide chest. “This should feel good, so let me know if anything doesn’t feel right, okay, Sherlock?”

It felt marvellous to be so thoroughly pliant to the confident handling of his Big Daddy. “Okay…”

Pleased, John stroked the top of one of Sherlock’s tiny feet. “That’s my good baby,” he praised lowly.

Sherlock’s pale, sun-deprived skin must have been a great contrast to the burning blush in his cheeks.

“Don’t be anxious. This will be feel very good, I promise. I’ll go slowly… It won’t hurt, so go on, breathe for daddy…” John pushed himself at a painstaking pace, and with great care, into Sherlock’s snug, eager warmth. 

It was impossible to ever be prepared for how completely John’s prodigious length breached little Sherlock. It ought to have been too big to fit inside of him, and admittedly its great size frightened Sherlock even if he didn’t mean to be frightened, but somehow John made it possible. When Sherlock’s hips flinched away, John guided them back, carefully but firmly. 

There was a moan from the high-pitched voice of John’s darling boy.

“You’ve got it…” Bit by bit, John pushed inside. He paused a few times to stroke and sooth Sherlock’s tummy, and Sherlock was very grateful for the calming attention. In this manner, John penetrated deeply into him without causing Sherlock discomfort.

It was even better than the last time that John had taken him. From this angle, with which John could slide into Sherlock like a key into its lock, John competently made his guiltless boy shudder with need. An outrageous feeling of being decadently violated settled in Sherlock’s soul beside the sweet feeling that comes with being cherished and enjoyed by such a powerful man as John.

John backed out, gradually, then thrust even deeper into his boy, slowly enough to not hurt yet fast enough to give Sherlock a tempting sliver of satisfaction. 

With a shake, Sherlock whimpered. “Mr B… Big Daddy…”

“It’s okay, Sherlock. I want you to enjoy this. Lie back, and relax… and think about how much your daddy loves you.” John gave Sherlock more time to adjust to the intrusion into his vulnerable deepness, before again moving back and forth. 

It was more intensely gratifying than anything had the right to be. John’s well-mannered Little One cried out in helpless ecstasy. “John… I love you…” Though he couldn’t say it aloud, Sherlock desperately wanted more.

John understood him anyway. “I love you, too.” There was a wet thrust, in and out. It felt so perfect and good. “Your daddy loves you, very much. He’ll always protect you…” Forward and back, Sherlock’s weightless body was played along the bed by the gentle force of John’s hips.

Time melted away into endlessness. Sherlock wished that John could take him like this forever, to be as useful as this forever. Sherlock tremendously liked to lie on the bed like this, having John standing in front of him, rubbing his enormous lust inside of Sherlock over and over. Sherlock felt like he was John’s precious baby. Back and forth, steadily and exceedingly surely, John took his wholehearted pleasure from Sherlock. He wrested continuous whimpers of self-conscious delight from the delicate child.

“Sherlock.” John was blindingly handsome in the midst of passion. Sherlock watched, hypnotised, as sweat trickled down John’s forehead. “We were already a family, you and I, a family of two, and it was brilliant… but don’t worry. I’ll make a larger family for you, in England. You’ll be everyone’s baby, everyone will love you and adore you… All the friends we left behind in London, they’ll be our friends again…” John thrust more eagerly and possessively; Sherlock was powerless to the deep, heady rush of it. “Everyone will get to see,” he murmured sultrily, “what a good, sweet boy you are for their daddy.”

Sherlock gasped. He couldn’t stop himself—and neither did he want to—as green, viscous ADAM leaked delicately from his length. He meant to give a warning to John. “Um, Daddy…!”

No warning was necessary, though. John reverently scooped it, and sucked it off his fingers. He moaned with pleasure. “God, yes,” he murmured breathlessly, as he pushed smoothly forward. “Let it all out for me, baby.”

It was too wonderful to see how his Big Daddy liked his gift. Sherlock sobbed, thankful tears streaming down his bright cheeks. His body arched, and his ADAM streamed out, running along his crotch and also pooling on his abdomen. John rocked Sherlock through it, paternally encouraging out every last drop of Sherlock’s ambrosia.

Sherlock was a mess now, but John didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by it. Only a few moments more, and John found his release inside of Sherlock, whispering endless praises for his boy as he did so. Once Sherlock was full of the physical manifestation of John’s devotion, John dropped to his knees and ravenously drank in all of Sherlock’s ADAM directly from his softening length and stomach.

There was no strength left in Sherlock, if there ever had been any. The boy could only lie back and savour the overwhelming sensations of being touched and sucked intimately even after he had released his ADAM, and even after all of the ADAM was admiringly consumed.

Sherlock did, however, find enough energy to make one tiny request. “Would you… hold my hand, please?” 

One of John’s strong hands flashed into Sherlock’s weak own, and grasped tightly. “For you, always,” John promised with abundant gravity, and those words were startlingly familiar—and for a split second, Sherlock thought that he could once more see John towering over him in a half-undone wedding suit, smiling down at him, patiently guiding a very nervous Sherlock through the motions of physical love as they irrevocably gave up an old life to start a new one together. 

Sherlock beamed cheerfully at John. It seemed to Sherlock that John was surprised and dearly smitten by the sight.

–

Light on his bare feet, Mycroft quietly closed the water closet door behind him. His goal in doing so was to avoid rousing the man in the other room. It must have been the case that Lestrade had failed to find much sleep since they had been separated, since he had dozed off almost as soon as he moved to sit with Mycroft on the bed. Mycroft, on the other hand, had been forcibly made unconscious for many of the dreadful hours he’d spent in Rapture, and did not fall asleep.

There was another reason why he remained awake, and it was that reason which brought him to the toilet.

It must be the alien, unwanted ADAM inside of him, demanding release. 

As horrendously shameful as this was, Mycroft told himself that this would be over quickly. He unceremoniously dropped his underwear underneath his dress, took a deep breath, and rubbed his own small length. It was surprisingly saddening more than anything else. He felt terribly alone. He wanted Lestrade to be the one to do this to him, yet he also did not want Lestrade to have to be a part of this. It would be easier for everyone if Lestrade did not have to be sexually intimate with the child-sized version of Mycroft—not without time to adjust, at any rate. Better that Mycroft take care of this on his own for now, and avoid all the confusion of involving his lover.

But no matter how hard he rubbed himself, it wasn’t working. Although there was indeed the sense of being overfull in an unmentionable place, there was no pleasant energy to it. It was only a dull, unhappy insistence under his skin. Mycroft tried to make it better by thinking of Lestrade. 

That did not work, either. The painful loneliness that haunted him only grew stronger. It shouldn’t be his own hand around his own aching length. Where was his Big Daddy? Didn’t Mycroft need him to be here?

“Mycroft?” There was a knock on the open door. 

Mycroft froze. 

The flat, cautious tone with which Lestrade had spoken Mycroft’s name indicated that Lestrade knew why Mycroft had come here. 

It was too hard to turn around and look, so Mycroft stared at the ugly porcelain of the toilet. Unable to continue in front of Lestrade, Mycroft could only clutch at the rim of toilet. “It hurts,” he whispered, as if that was any excuse for why he had succumbed to the undying shame of inappropriately touching his own child self.

Lestrade’s voice didn’t change its distance, nor did it adopt the character of disgust that Mycroft feared to hear. “I’m sorry to barge in… I’d understand if you don’t want me here, but… if I can be of any help… I wanted to tell you, I’m here.”

Every part of Mycroft screamed for him to let this man help. Everything would surely work itself out, if only Mycroft could feel the warmth of Lestrade’s great arms around him, and Lestrade’s certain breath at Mycroft’s ear. It was ungodly, how much Mycroft wanted this man—a beast practically double his own size, for all intents and purposes—to come nearer and make all of Mycroft’s bad thoughts simply go away.

“I’m sorry… I shouldn’t be here… I’ll go…”

Suddenly, Mycroft hurt in a new way, and with a ghastly jolt to his heart, he remembered: the pain of his own loneliness and uncertainties was nothing compared to the awfulness of knowing that Lestrade felt that Mycroft had rejected him. It was too abominable to consider. He could not do that to the man he loved, not anymore. Mycroft closed his eyes tightly shut. “Greg, please!”

There was a pause. Then, Lestrade came nearer.

The hesitation in Mycroft’s beloved’s movements cut through Mycroft like a razor. He had once told himself that he would never again give Lestrade the chance to doubt that his place was at Mycroft’s side. “Please, I want you here,” he forced himself to say. He hated how his whiny voice reverberated back to him in the toilet bowl. It sounded so weak and needy.

Lestrade was on his knees behind the child. He didn’t move to touch Mycroft yet, though. “Uh, what do you need me to do?”

Mycroft could have laughed at that, he was so miserable. “I don’t know,” he lied, not yet wanting to believe the unforgivable truth. “The ADAM that’s in me, it won’t come out—!” He shut up suddenly, with a sharp intake of breath. 

“Mycroft?”

A strong hand had fallen into place on Mycroft’s waist. Until that touch, Mycroft’s body knew only discomfort and panic. As soon as the weight of Lestrade’s grasp was on his fragile being, however, that dreadful discomfort changed into something far more pleasant. It was a good, vigorous feeling—the exact same feeling he’d experienced when he had sat on Lestrade’s lap earlier, he realised acutely. Lestrade hesitated before pressing himself to Mycroft’s back.

“Let’s, uh, do this together…” Lestrade caressed down the form-fitting torso of Mycroft’s dress. Mycroft would never be able to repay Lestrade for how supportive he was being to this wreck of a frightened man, trapped in a child’s cage. “It’s nothing we haven’t done before… right?”

Childish tears threatened to break through from under Mycroft’s eyelids. “Yes… please…”

Tentatively, with uncertainty and slowness that was not typical of him, Lestrade lowered his hand, all the way down, to at last stroke along the soft skin where small drips of ADAM were already leaking from Mycroft’s needy body.

If Mycroft had had any great capacity for self-restraint in the past, it was gone now. Mycroft sobbed aloud from the cathartic pleasure that assaulted his every anxious nerve. The world around him went multicoloured with sparkles and rainbows. The large, warm hand that stroked up and down along Mycroft’s arousal was sin itself. The tightness of the accumulated ADAM deep in his core gave way to sweet relief and arousal. “Oh, heaven above,” Mycroft moaned weakly. Ignominy be damned, he’d never needed Lestrade so much. “I beg you, more, p-please—” He didn’t have the bravery to say the name of Mr Bubbles, not on his own. “Please, Greg,” he said instead.

Lestrade’s voice was positively ragged and husky. “Yes,” he assured, “of course, as much as you want.”

Mycroft tried to murmur his heartfelt gratitude, as he surrendered himself at last to the demands of his body and to the relief that Lestrade was administering to him. So, this was it. This was the depth of the unholy existence that his little brother had been living for so long. Shockingly, Mycroft finally comprehended how Sherlock could find so much joy in being the precious child-mate of an overpowering protector.

–

It was some time later, just as Sherlock was in the middle of falling asleep in the soothing sheets that John had been kind enough to wipe off for him, when Sherlock heard voices come alive somewhere near him. It occurred to the baby boy that he might wake himself and join in with the conversation, but a heavy hand calmly pressed him into the bedsheets once more, wordlessly bidding the child to go on comfortably sleeping. Sherlock did that, as the hand lulled him into a beautiful sleepy daze with wide, circling movements.

“Hey, John—oh!” The veritable shout dropped to a whisper. “Sorry to bother. I didn’t expect him to be sleeping… I should have, though, since Mycroft’s fast asleep, too…”

“It’s no trouble. My dear Sherlock will keep resting, won’t he? He’s a good boy.” John’s kind encouragement wafted pleasurably and half-consciously through Sherlock. “What’s the matter, Greg? Come sit over here and tell me about it.”

“I, uh, only came by for Mycroft’s umbrella. You know, the black one he carries around all the time? He must have forgot it somewhere, and I was looking to get it back for him…”

“It’s behind the door there. But you might want to be careful with it. It’s not just black anymore, and it’s not just an umbrella.”

“Really? Then what it is?”

“A white parasol.” 

“What?” 

“That’s what it looks like to Sherlock and Mycroft, anyway. They can’t see umbrellas, except if they’re looking at crowbars. As for the white colour, I can’t say why that is, but it is. It’s because of the Little Sister vision. It’s not very predictable, and affects a lot of things. It was a big problem for Sherlock, at the beginning. He got upset about it sometimes. He’d worry that he could never trust his own eyes again, would never solve mysteries with them again, and that there was nothing he could do about it. Mycroft will get stuck in those negative thoughts, too, if he hasn’t already.”

“That’s awful…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you what to do. Whenever Sherlock talked like that, and when he was crying, I held him, and told him that I love him. I kissed and stroked him as much as I could, to remind him that he could still feel me, the same as before. I can’t tell you how many times I sat my kind, adorable Sherlock down in my lap and rubbed his back until his panic died down. I talked to him also, mostly about small things, but I think it was mainly the touches that made him feel better.” 

That didn’t sound sufficient, though—not when John’s accepting and caring touches, and his conversation, had virtually saved Sherlock. Everything else had changed; his warm, selfless John was the one constant that Sherlock could trust and rely upon. It had also turned out that John was the only constant that Sherlock needed to find eternal wonderment and joy in the eternal childhood that had once been a total nightmare.

“That’s what I need you to do for Mycroft, Greg. Give him your best hug, whenever he needs it. Stroke his skin wherever he likes it, and make sure he gets plenty of sleep. And let him know as often as you can that it’s perfectly all right, if his umbrella looks like a parasol—and, besides, aren’t parasols prettier?” 

A small half-smile ghosted over Sherlock’s lips. Yes, parasols were a lot prettier. 

“Ha… I will! I will. Thank you, John… I’ll try.”

“You’re welcome. Go on, back to Mycroft. Sherlock and I will see you later.”

“Right… later!”

There was relative silence in their quarters again. It was the two of them alone again, as they had happily been for as long as Sherlock cared to remember. He could feel John’s love from the ends of his tiny toes to the bottom of his soul when John stroked along his child’s gently breathing chest, and parted his curly hair over and over. 

These dreamy moments must have been shorter in actuality than they seemed to Sherlock. It was an alarming sin, a defiance against the laws of men and of gods, to so profoundly enjoy how John was cuddling him to his own large form, as he would a beloved child. But this wasn’t merely playing at house. This was never only a game. This exchange of love between him and his husband, this trust that Sherlock placed naturally in John and in John’s warming embrace—this was simply how they were. Cradled securely by John’s arms and knees, Sherlock was tremendously happy.

Therefore, Sherlock was more asleep than awake by the time a telltale click of another old audio log registered to his sensitive ears. 

The depth and richness of his own adult voice which came through was not especially familiar to him. “Surprise, happy anniversary, John,” he had recorded for his clandestine boyfriend, after their descent into Rapture but long before the fall of the city, before everything they’d ever known about love and morality was turned on its head. “I know it’s not really our anniversary. That would be impossible, since this is our wedding day. I also know that you won’t discover this gift until you make your next recording. So, this might be too sentimental of me. It should be. I’m so happy, John. You’re doing so much for my sake—though, that’s nothing new, is it? You’ve given up everything back in London, just so we could get married, like I always dreamed we would. 

“I swear, I will never give you cause to regret it. We’ll be happy together, safe and hidden from everyone we ever knew in this bizarre city. Every day of my life, from here on—they all belong to you. No more cocaine. No more morphine. No more spending entire days and nights on my work. That’s what you always wanted, right? I can’t be an easy man to live with, but… I will try to be as good as I can be, for you, John. That’s my second vow of the night—my last vow: I will endeavour to always be useful to you, as you perpetually have been to me.” A light snicker broke the seriousness of the speech. “Well, we’ll see how far I get with that. At any rate, I will try. I love you, John. Sleep well, and, see you soon.”

In his honeyed dreams of glitter and stickers of fun shapes, Sherlock was flying high on a swing set, trying to go as high as he could for his daddy. Without a doubt, John was right there behind him, giving him pushes and cheering him on.

–

London was only slightly more livable than Sherlock remembered. The abundance of fluffy clouds (smog) was not quite as bad as it once was. The public transportation system had always been agreeable. Technology and modern conveniences had improved, though they were nothing in comparison to the futuristic tools and amenities that had been commonplace in Rapture.

His rosy vision was not as meddlesome in the world of the living. However, buildings were like castles, streets were like bridges, and cars seemed literally to be horseless carriages. The clothes were equally as elegant, which Sherlock was disappointed by. The hints that the details of clothes once provided to his mind remained obscured.

Their old apartment in Baker Street had been available. Apparently, a crime had taken place in it, which prevented anyone else from taking interest and which also lowered the rent. 

The landlady was the same as their former one, though they hadn’t had the chance to meet her again yet. Sherlock and John had only moved in today.

Therefore, when the doorbell sounded, Sherlock thought it strange that their landlady should ring the bell when she surely had her own key. The solution to this was a simple: it was not her who had come.

John hurried down the steps and opened the street door. 

There stood Lestrade, with a little boy at his side. It was raining; Sherlock’s brother’s thin white parasol was currently being used by the former detective of Scotland Yard as an umbrella for both of them.

Sherlock crept to hide behind John’s leg. He noticed that Mycroft was doing the same behind Lestrade. They exchanged wordless gazes; Mycroft’s was largely uncomfortable, while Sherlock’s was bright and welcoming.

Lestrade asked the man of the house, “Why are they called Little Sisters and Big Daddies?”

John raised an eyebrow. Neither Sherlock nor John had expected those to be his first words of greeting. John said, “I beg your pardon?”

“They’re peculiar titles, aren’t they?” Lestrade took off his bowler hat, and fiddled with it. “Little Sister, Big Daddy… What does it mean? I don’t understand it. Is Sherlock supposed to be your Little Sister? Or are you supposed to be his Big Daddy?”

Sherlock wasn’t sure why this mattered, but John answered Lestrade freely. “Not exactly. We were supposed to be like a little sister and a father to the people of Rapture. A little sister is someone who needs to be protected; a big daddy is the boss who keeps everyone in line.”

Lestrade frowned uneasily. “Oh…”

“That’s not to say it can’t take on another meaning. It certainly has for us, brilliantly, I daresay.” John sent a fond glance Sherlock’s way, and the child clapped happily in agreement. John turned to Lestrade again. “It’s good that you and Mycroft have come round. Sherlock was missing you.”

“He was? Well, that’s good, then… Sherlock’s certainly nice like that, but…” Lestrade sighed. “You were an awfully big help to us, Mr Holmes and me, on the ship. Things started to make sense after that talk you gave us, but… we’re a tad stuck again. It’s all too… confusing for us. We were hoping you’d be good enough to send a little more help our way, some guidance, if you’re willing.” 

That was exactly the sort of thing that Sherlock wanted to hear, and John seemed pleased by it. “I’ll see what I can do.” John stepped back. “Don’t just stand there in the rain, come on in.”

Lestrade did come in, and Mycroft was right behind him. Sherlock, being a well-mannered child, closed the door softly after them, and used the coat rack to hang up their wet parasol by its hooked end. It didn’t bother Sherlock that the parasol was heavier to lift than it ought to have been, given its dainty appearance; the funny discrepancy only made him giggle, a sound which earned him two bewildered stares and one understanding smile.

End


End file.
